California Man Gets 9 Years in Firebombing of Planned Parenthood Clinic

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., federal authorities said.

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. The federal authorities referred to him as a former Marine.

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 statement said.

U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney said Mr. Brannon, who was also ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution, “engaged in cruel and indefensible domestic terrorism.”

Mr. Brannon pleaded guilty in November to one count each of charges of conspiracy; malicious destruction of property by fire and explosives; possession of an unregistered destructive device, and intentionally damaging a reproductive health services facility, the federal authorities 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.