Status: 12/27/2022 7:07 p.m
In 2020, government opponents in the US state of Michigan had planned to kidnap Governor Whitmer. The two leaders of the group were found guilty, and the sentence for one has now been announced: he must be imprisoned for 16 years.
One of the two leaders in the plot to kidnap US Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been sentenced to 16 years in prison. The Michigan court has now announced Adam Fox’s sentence after he was found guilty along with his accomplice Barry Croft Jr. in a second trial in August. The two were charged with conspiring to kidnap Whitmer.
Croft’s sentence will be announced on Wednesday. According to the indictment, Fox and Croft led a group of extremist opponents of the government who opposed Whitmer’s corona rules and feared for their right to own guns. Among other things, they completed weapons training and spied on the summer house of the democratic politician.
Breakup of the group in October 2020
FBI agents infiltrated the group and dismantled it in October 2020, just before the presidential election. Politically, the atmosphere in the USA was extremely heated at the time. 14 people were arrested, Whitmer was unharmed.
According to prosecutors, Fox was the driving force behind the group, urging his recruits to take up arms and kill anyone who stood in their way. According to the indictment, Croft was the group’s chief ideologue and responsible for building bombs.
Already imprisonment for accomplices
At a first trial against Fox and Croft, the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict, so it was reopened. They were threatened with life imprisonment. However, Judge Robert Jonker said in announcing Fox’s sentence that in his eyes that would be too much. Even with 16 years of imprisonment you discourage possible imitators.
In mid-December, three of the two men’s accomplices were sentenced to seven to twelve years in prison in a separate trial for aiding and abetting a terrorist offence.