‘Recklessness.’ 2nd man accused in Pierce substation attacks ordered held without bail
A second man accused of attacking four Pierce County substations and knocking out power for thousands on Christmas Day was ordered held without bail by a U.S. District Court judge in Tacoma on Tuesday pending a grand jury indictment.
Federal pretrial services officials and the defense attorney for 40-year-old Jeremy Crahan recommended that he be released to his parents’ Pierce County residence on GPS monitoring, but Chief Magistrate Judge Richard Creatura disagreed. Creatura cited the danger of the power outages and prosecutors’ allegations Crahan was planning another attack with co-defendant Matthew Greenwood, 32, in the days that followed.
Federal law enforcement used electronic location data to put Crahan’s and Greenwood’s cell phones at the scenes of all four attacks — the only devices that was true for, according to court documents and testimony. Additionally, Crahan’s truck matched a vehicle captured on surveillance footage.
“The weight of the evidence is pretty significant here,” Creatura said.
Investigators have not uncovered evidence the Pierce County attacks were politically motivated, and attorneys have relied upon Greenwood’s admission to the FBI that the outages were cover for burglaries of local businesses. Assistant U.S. attorney Todd Greenberg said search warrants for the suspects’ phones were pending.
“It’s astounding to think of the level of poor judgment and recklessness,” Greenberg said of the Christmas Day attacks that knocked out power for an estimated 15,000 Puget Sound Energy and Tacoma Power customers and caused millions of dollars in damage.
Federal public defenders were assigned to represent the defendants based on financial disclosures. Lance Hester of Tacoma-based Hester Law Group is representing Crahan because the Office of the Federal Public Defender can’t represent two co-defendants.
Crahan shook his head when Creatura and Greenberg mentioned him planning a follow-up attack and suggested he might commit crimes if released on GPS monitoring. He watched attentively as the attorneys spoke and attempted to address Creatura directly as the hearing concluded. Hester stopped him from grabbing the microphone.
Crahan’s criminal history includes 12 felony convictions since 2005, the most recent being a 2016 conviction in a residential burglary case. Greenberg said Crahan was still under state supervision from a 2014 conviction at the time. Greenberg said Crahan also had active arrest warrants during the substation attacks.
Hester said Crahan doesn’t have a history of violence and no longer has issues with drug use, which had a factor in his past criminal activity.
“He is proud to have that dependency behind him,” Hester said while arguing for his release.
Greenwood told the FBI that he and Crahan got the idea to knock out power to cover up burglaries from TV news coverage of recent attacks on electrical infrastructure. Federal law enforcement has raised concerns about domestic extremists, such as white supremacist and anti-government groups, targeting energy facilities, according to the Associated Press.
Before the Christmas Day outages, the number of confirmed or suspected attacks on the Washington power grid had reached a decade-high last year, according to an analysis by The News Tribune.
Creatura also ordered Greenwood held without bail on Friday. Greenwood’s defense attorney argued for his release on GPS monitoring to an inpatient drug treatment facility, which federal pretrial services also recommended due to methamphetamine addiction.
Each of the defendants had to overcome a presumption under federal law that they should remain in custody on a charge of conspiracy to damage energy facilities, which is considered a crime of terrorism and carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. Greenwood also faces up to 10 years on a possessing unregistered firearms offense.
Greenwood’s girlfriend told The News Tribune that the men met each other through her, calling Crahan an older brother figure. She said Greenwood was desperate to come up with money to care for the baby she’s expected to deliver in a few weeks.
Both defendants waived a preliminary hearing where Creatura would have ruled whether there was probable cause to proceed to trial. Their attorneys and federal prosecutors asked to extend the deadline for a grand jury indictment to March 16 due to ongoing investigations of the attacks.
This story was originally published January 10, 2023 at 3:59 PM with the headline "‘Recklessness.’ 2nd man accused in Pierce substation attacks ordered held without bail."
