Liam Collins (AWD)

Liam Collins was a former United States Marine who served at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and a leader on the Iron March neo-Nazi forum. After leaving the Marines, Collins organized with Paul James Kryscuk, Jordan Duncan (a fellow former Marine), Joseph Maurino (a New Jersey National Guardsman), and Justin Wade Hermanson in an accelerationist network that planned attacks on power grid infrastructure in the northwestern United States. The group's propaganda video featured participants in Atomwaffen Division skull masks. Collins was convicted in the Eastern District of North Carolina and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on July 25, 2024.¹

Iron March and AWD Connection

Collins and Kryscuk met through Iron March, the neo-fascist forum that served as AWD's founding platform, and used the forum to recruit additional members before it closed in late 2017. Their group is described by prosecutors as having "ties to racially motivated violent extremists" including AWD and using the same iconography, including AWD skull masks during training sessions and a "black sun" symbol in propaganda videos. Whether Collins was a formal AWD member is not confirmed in court documents; the government's characterization is that the group was Iron March-derived and AWD-adjacent rather than AWD-structured.²

The Conspiracy

From approximately 2017 to 2020, Collins's network communicated through encrypted messaging applications, conducted paramilitary training in the desert near Boise, Idaho, and planned attacks on power grid components in Idaho and surrounding states. The group researched a prior power substation attack (executed by an unknown group) as a model. In October 2020, federal agents found a handwritten list in Kryscuk's possession identifying approximately a dozen intersections and locations in the Pacific Northwest containing power grid infrastructure. Collins allegedly stole military gear during his Marine service for use in the plot; Duncan shared a military-derived library containing information on firearms, explosives, and nerve toxins.²

Joseph Maurino, then a New Jersey Army National Guard infantryman, supplied untraceable "ghost guns" and silencers to other network members, according to the superseding indictment. Maurino communicated via text messages recovered by the FBI in which he offered an "untraceable Glock" for $600.

Charges and Sentencing

The five defendants received a third superseding indictment in the Eastern District of North Carolina in August 2021 that added a charge of conspiracy to damage the property of a United States energy facility under 18 U.S.C. § 1366. Their sentences, imposed in July and October 2024, were:³

Liam Collins: 120 months (10 years), aiding and abetting interstate transportation of unregistered firearms. Jordan Duncan: 84 months (7 years), manufacturing a short-barrel rifle in violation of the National Firearms Act. Paul James Kryscuk: 78 months (6.5 years), conspiracy to damage an energy facility. Joseph Maurino: 21 months, conspiracy to manufacture firearms. Justin Wade Hermanson: 21 months, conspiracy to manufacture firearms.

Military Background of Defendants

Collins and Duncan were both former Marine infantrymen previously assigned to Camp Lejeune. Maurino was an active National Guardsman at the time of his offense. The combination of Marine training (Collins and Duncan) and National Guard access to military equipment (Maurino) in a single conspiracy network exemplifies the type of military-skills-to-extremist-network pipeline that the 2021 Defense Department stand-down sought to address.⁴