A California man who used a Molotov cocktail to firebomb a clinic providing abortion services was sentenced to nine years in prison on Monday in the 2022 attack on the facility, which is operated by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in Costa Mesa, Calif., The New York Times reports.. The man, Chance Brannon, 24, was an active-duty member of the U.S. Marine Corps and was stationed at Camp Pendleton when he carried out the attack, the United States attorney’s office for the Central District of California said in a statement.
He also was plotting attacks at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles during a pride celebration and on an electrical substation in Orange County, Calif., which he believed would start a race war, as well as planned home invasions targeting Jewish residents of Los Angeles, the US attorney's office statement said. Mr. Brannon and a co-conspirator, Tibet Ergul, 22, of Irvine, Calif., wore hooded sweatshirts and masks as they lit and threw a Molotov cocktail at the clinic’s entrance at around 1 a.m. on March 13, 2022, according to a criminal complaint. It struck the entrance and started a fire, the statement said. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in the statement on Monday that Mr. Brannon placed lives at risk by launching the “brazen attack” against the clinic, which provided abortion, birth control and other health care services.