(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — A Tennessee man pleaded guilty Tuesday to plotting to using a weapon of mass destruction in a neo-Nazi-inspired plot to destroy an energy facility near Nashville, the Justice Department announced.
Skyler Philippi, 24, was arrested last November over his plans to attack Nashville’s power grid with a drone armed with explosives. According to the DOJ, charging documents showed Philippi conducted extensive research into how such an attack could serve to “shock the system,” as he relayed to one FBI confidential source who became aware of his plotting.
The FBI first began investigating Philippi last June after a confidential source who was in touch with him reported to the FBI his desire to commit a mass shooting at a YMCA near Columbia, Tennessee, according to prosecutors