Peter Karasev, the California man who pleaded guilty to bombing electrical transformers owned by Pacific Gas and Electric in December 2022 and January 2023, has been sentenced to serve 10 years in federal prison and pay more than $200,000 in restitution to the victims of his attack.

U.S. District Judge Beth Freeman handed down the sentence on Dec. 16, the Department of Justice wrote in a press release, just over three years after Karasev carried out his first bombing. After his prison time, which Freeman recommended be as close as possible to Karasev’s family in Atlanta, the defendant must serve three years of supervised release.

Karasev, who was 36 at the time of his arraignment, initially pleaded not guilty to two counts of damaging energy facilities and one count of using fire and an explosive to commit a felony, but changed his pleas on the energy facilities charges after reaching an agreement with prosecutors in April. (See California Man Arraigned for Substation Bomb Attacks.) Prosecutors agreed to drop the third charge as part of the deal.

Karasev’s guilty plea agreed that “the attacks were premediated and deliberate,” DOJ said, mentioning that the defendant “conducted extensive internet searches regarding explosive materials, infrastructure attacks and geopolitical conflicts.” According to court records, Karasev, a naturalized citizen born in Russia with family in both Russia and Ukraine, had frequently mentioned the military conflict between the two countries in the months prior to his first attack “and was often upset when doing so.”

Karasev carried out his first attack around 1:30 a.m. Dec. 8, 2022, exploding a homemade bomb between the cooling fins of a transformer near a shopping mall. The second attack occurred shortly before 3 a.m. Jan. 5, 2023, at a transformer near a shopping center. 1,451 PG&E customers lost electric service because of the first attack, while the second attack affected about 55 customers.

The indictment said “PG&E initially assumed the outages were cause by internal transformer failures,” but later investigation revealed that both incidents were caused by explosive damage. Officers with the San Jose Police Department checked surveillance footage after the second bombing and saw “a single suspect wearing dark clothing and a backpack.” The person in the video arrived by bicycle around 2:48 a.m., then put his backpack near the transformer box, lit it on fire and left on his bicycle. The transformer exploded a few minutes later.

Karasev was tracked down through cell phone data obtained via a warrant, which showed only a single active device within the targeted area during the relevant time period. That device was traced to Karasev, and a check of his search history revealed additional incriminating information, such as a search for the phrase “san jose news” within 30 minutes of the December 2022 bombing and further searches for “shaped charge” and “sjfd [San Jose Fire Department] explosion.”

Officers who searched Karasev’s home uncovered homemade explosives, firearms, a bicycle resembling the one from the security footage and a methamphetamine lab with finished drugs. Explosives, drugs and ammunition were found in his vehicle and office at self-driving car company Zoox.

DOJ emphasized the potentially serious impact of Karasev’s actions, observing that 15 of the households affected by the bombings were enrolled in PG&E’s Medical Baseline Program for customers requiring uninterrupted electric service for medical needs.

Judge Freeman’s order includes $214,880.67 of restitution to PG&E, Best Choice Dental, CalStar Management and Round Table Pizza. The indictment named Round Table among businesses in the shopping center where Karasev carried out the first attack and mentioned that the second explosion “shattered the windows of” a nearby dentist’s office.

Karasev “aimed to inflict widespread disruption and harm, but we remain steadfast in our commitment to holding accountable those who threaten the safety and well-being of the residents of San Jose,” said Craig Missakian, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California. “We and our law enforcement partners will leverage every available resource to ensure that violent extremists like the defendant face the full force of justice.”