Former Marine gets nine years in firebombing of Planned Parenthood clinic

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) — A former U.S. Marine who pleaded guilty to firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Southern California was sentenced to nine years in federal prison Monday afternoon.

Chance Brannon, 24, was an active-duty Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton when during the early morning hours of March 13, 2022, he and an accomplice threw a Molotov cocktail at the clinic in Costa Mesa, hitting the clinic's entrance and starting a fire before fleeing.

The pair also plotted to attack a Southern California Edison substation to disrupt the power grid in Orange County, and they discussed and researched an attack on Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on the Major League Baseball team's LGBTQ pride night in the summer of 2023.

Brannon, according to a statement Monday by the U.S. attorney's office in LA, was motivated by an extremist neo-Nazi ideology, and frequently greeted his friends using “88,” a reference to the eighth letter of the alphabet, "h," and code for “Heil Hitler."

He also possessed antisemitic writings, drawings and literature in his bedroom at the time of his arrest in June 2023, and he made comments to his fellow Marines including “All jews deserve to die,” according to the government.

“The defendant violently attacked a reproductive health care facility and plotted multiple, potentially deadly assaults to advance his hate-fueled agenda,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the statement. “The defendant’s assault on the Costa Mesa clinic was designed to terrorize patients seeking reproductive health care and the people who provide it."

Katherine Corrigan, Bannon's attorney, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the sentence.

The lawyer had asked for a prison term of no more than the mandatory minimum sentence of five years.

"He now understands that his political, personal and religious beliefs cannot be imposed on others, and that his actions are not acceptable or productive," Corrigan said in Brannon's plea for leniency. "He understands that he betrayed his service to our nation as a Marine."

Tibet Ergul, Bannon's fellow plotter, pleaded guilty a few months ago for his part in the Planned Parenthood attack.

The two targeted Planned Parenthood to make a statement against abortion, to scare pregnant women from obtaining abortions, and to deter doctors, staff, and employees of the clinic from providing abortions, according to Ergul's plea agreement.

They assembled a Molotov cocktail at Ergul's garage and, wearing hoodies and face masks, threw it at the clinic's door in the middle of the night. The clinic was forced to temporarily close and had to reschedule dozens of appointments.

The two intended to attack a second Planned Parenthood clinic in Orange County with a Molotov cocktail in June 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, but they scrapped that plan when they noticed law enforcement near the targeted clinic.

According to the prosecution, Brannon used racial slurs for various minority groups, and he “made hateful comments towards all non-white individuals,” and discussed “cleansing” the United States of particular ethnic groups. In the weeks leading up to his arrest, Brannon texted a friend, “Can we just be done with elections and have the race war already.”

Follow @edpettersson

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