Man pleads guilty to charges that he meant to blow up a Nashville power site with a bomb-laden drone

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A 24-year-old man with ties to white nationalist groups pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges that he attempted to use a drone to bomb a Nashville electricity substation, according to prosecutors.

Skyler Philippi, of Columbia, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy an energy facility, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a statement. He faces up to life in prison at his Jan. 8 sentencing.

“For months, Philippi planned what he had hoped would be a devastating attack on Nashville’s energy infrastructure. He acquired what he believed to be explosives, surveilled his target, and equipped a drone to attack an electrical substation. Motivated by a violent ideology, Philippi wanted ‘to do something big.’ Instead, the FBI disrupted his plans, and Philippi now awaits sentencing,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in the statement.

Philippi’s lawyer, R. David Baker, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Philippi told a confidential FBI source in July 2024 that he wanted to attack several electricity substations to “shock the system,” an FBI agent wrote in the criminal complaint. That source later introduced Philippi to an undercover FBI employee, who began to collect information about Philippi’s plan with other undercover agents.

In November 2024, Philippi and undercover employees drove to his intended Nashville launch site and prepared to fly a drone that authorities say Philippi believed had 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms) of C-4 plastic explosive attached to it. The material had been provided by the undercover employees, according to prosecutors.

When he was arrested, Philippi had the drone powered up and was preparing to attach the armed explosive device to it as undercover employees pretended to be acting as lookouts for him, prosecutors said.

Philippi allegedly told undercover officials that he was affiliated with several white nationalist and extremist groups, including the National Alliance, which calls for eradicating Jews and other groups of people. Such extremist groups increasingly view attacking the U.S. power grid as a means of disrupting the country.

Philippi pleaded not guilty in January. In a March letter to the judge from jail, Philippi claimed that the undercover FBI agents had violated his due process rights and that his public defender had provided ineffective counsel.