The sentences announced by the court for the conspiracy to kidnap the governor of Michigan
The leader of a failed plot by members of far-right paramilitary groups to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 was sentenced today to 16 years in prison by a US district court, prosecutors said.
THE Adam Fox39, was found guilty in August by a federal jury in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of conspiring to kidnap Democrat Whitmer and use a weapon of mass destruction, with prosecutors arguing the ultimate goal was to provoke a “second American Revolution ».
The co-accused Barry Croft Jr47, like Fox, a member of the paramilitary group Three Percenters, was convicted of the same charges in the same trial and is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday.
Prosecutors described Fox as the mastermind of the plot to break into Whitmer’s cottage, kidnap her and then bring her to “trial” on alleged treason charges that would have put her to death.
U.S. District Court Judge, Richard Jonker, said he did not believe the life sentence prosecutors had sought was appropriate, but that the crimes warranted a “significant sentence,” the Detroit News reported. Fox declined to speak during the sentencing and had no reaction to the announcement of the sentence, the report added.
Fox’s lawyer had argued that prosecutors overstated his role. The lawyer added that Fox and Croft never used explosives and that the group could never have kidnapped the skipper.
Prosecutors said the plot, sparked by the group’s opposition to public health measures imposed by Whitmer in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, was aimed at pushing the country into armed conflict just before the crucial presidential election on November 2020.
The reported “weapon of mass destruction” was a bomb that prosecutors said the plotters planned to detonate to hinder law enforcement’s response to the kidnapping.
Whitmer, co-chair of Joe Biden’s campaign for the US presidency in that year’s election, had publicly clashed with then-President Donald Trump for its policies in dealing with Covid-19.
She had accused Trump of stoking political extremism by repeatedly using strong rhetoric on the issue, including at a campaign rally in Michigan where Trump’s criticism of Whitmer drew chants from the crowd of “Close the prison.”
Fox and Croft were among 13 men arrested in October 2020 for the kidnapping plot.
Two others tried with them in federal court were found not guilty in April 2022. The same jury then did not reach a verdict for Fox and Croft.
Two other men who pleaded guilty to conspiracy testified at the indictment in the first federal trial and at the retrial of Fox and Croft about four months later.
The two cooperating witnesses, Ty Garbin and Caleb Franks, were sentenced to 2.5 and 4 years in prison, respectively.
Three other men were tried together in state court and convicted in October 2022 for their roles in the conspiracy as members of the Wolverine Watchmen paramilitary organization and were recently given prison sentences of 10, 12 and 7 years, respectively.
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