The leader of a foiled plot by members of right-wing militia groups to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Tuesday in a U.S. District Court, prosecutors said.
Adam Fox, 39, was found guilty in August by a federal court jury in Grand Rapids, Mich., on one count each of conspiring to abduct Ms. Whitmer, a Democrat, and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in a scheme prosecutors said was intended to spark a “second American Revolution.”
Co-defendant Barry Croft Jr., 47, like Mr. Fox a member of the Three Percenters militia group, was convicted of the same charges at the same trial and was scheduled for sentencing on Wednesday.
Prosecutors described Mr. Fox as the mastermind behind a plot to break into Ms. Whitmer’s vacation home, kidnap her at gunpoint, and take her to stand “trial” on bogus treason charges and face execution.
U.S. District Court’s Justice Richard Jonker said he did not think a life sentence, as asked for by prosecutors, was appropriate, but that the crimes required a “significant sentence,” the Detroit News reported. Mr. Fox declined to speak during the sentencing and had no reaction to the sentence, the report added.
The judge also imposed five years of supervised release beyond the sentence of 192 months in prison, prosecutors said.
Mr. Fox’s attorney had said prosecutors overstated his role. The attorney added that Mr. Fox and Mr. Croft never used explosives and the group would never have been able to actually kidnap the governor.
Prosecutors said the plot, precipitated by the group’s opposition to public-health measures Ms. Whitmer imposed during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, was aimed at pushing the country into armed conflict as a contentious presidential race approached in November, 2020.
The weapon of mass destruction involved was a bomb that prosecutors said the conspirators planned to detonate to hinder law enforcement’s response to the abduction.
Ms. Whitmer, co-chairperson of Joe Biden’s White House campaign that year, had clashed publicly with then-president Donald Trump over her COVID-19 policies.
She accused Mr. Trump of fomenting political extremism by repeatedly directing heated rhetoric on the issue, including a campaign rally in Michigan where his criticism of Ms. Whitmer drew chants of “Lock her up” from the crowd.
Mr. Fox and Mr. Croft were among 13 men arrested in October, 2020, in the kidnapping conspiracy.
Two others put on trial with them in federal court were found not guilty in April. The same jury failed to reach a verdict for Mr. Fox and Mr. Croft, resulting in a mistrial for them.
Two other men who pleaded guilty to kidnapping conspiracy charges testified for the prosecution at the first federal trial and during the retrial of Mr. Fox and Mr. Croft about four months later.
The two co-operating witnesses, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, were sentenced to 2½ years and four years in prison, respectively.
Three other men tried together in state court and convicted in October, 2022, of playing supporting roles in the plot as members of the Wolverine Watchmen militia were sentenced recently to minimum sentences of 10, 12 and 7 years in prison, respectively.