Co-Leader of Foiled Plot to Kidnap Gov. Whitmer Sentenced to 16 Years

This combination of images shows Barry Croft Jr. (L) and Adam Fox. Kent County Sheriff's Office via AP

The co-leader of a foiled plot 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, Michigan, on one count each of conspiring to abduct Whitmer, a Democrat, and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, prosecutors said. Described as the mastermind, Fox was accused of hatching a plot to break into Whitmer’s vacation home, kidnap her at gunpoint, and take her to stand “trial” on treason charges and face execution.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jonker told the sentencing hearing Tuesday 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. Fox declined to speak during the sentencing and had no reaction to the sentence, the report added.

Co-defendant Barry Croft Jr., 47—who like Fox, was a member of the Three Percenters group—was convicted of the same charges at the same trial and was scheduled for sentencing on Wednesday. Fox and Croft were among 13 men arrested in October 2020 in the kidnapping conspiracy.

Prosecutors said the plot, precipitated by the group’s opposition to what some have said are draconian lockdown measures that 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.

“People need to stop with the misplaced anger and place the anger where it should go, and that’s against our tyrannical ... government,” Fox said in the spring of 2020 according to prosecutors.

But they had no real plan for what to do with the governor if they actually seized her. Paradoxically, this made them more dangerous, not less,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said in a court filing before the hearing.

Earlier this month, in a separate sentencing, Whitmer gave a short video that served as a victim impact statement. She claimed that political extremism is on the rise.

“Like all Michiganders, these three defendants are free to disagree, vote, or campaign against me,” Whitmer said in her video. “Instead, they took a different path. They supported a violent conspiracy and provided material support for terrorism. They chose actions that are antithetical to what makes our nation strong and safe.”

Controversy

Earlier this year, there were concerns of entrapment after it was found that federal and state law enforcement used undercover informants and agents to derail the Whitmer kidnapping scheme and several accused individuals were acquitted. A mistrial was also declared for two others. Several defendants argued that at least 12 undercover FBI agents or informants were involved in the Wolverine Watchmen group, saying they were entrapped by federal officials.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses the media after signing the final piece of a $76 billion state budget into law in Detroit on July 20, 2022. Carlos Osorio/AP Photo

But Jackson County Circuit Judge Thomas Wilson, who oversaw one of the federal trials, rejected those claims in March 2022 saying that he “cannot” see how the government “somehow pressured any one of these individuals to participate in anything, or to get in line with this way of thinking.”

Earlier, Michael Hills, an attorney for defendant Brandon Caserta, argued in early 2021 that an FBI field agent allegedly told an informant to lie and delete text messages. Hills, while in court, provided images that purported to show FBI agent Impola Henrik telling the defendant to “be sure to delete these,” possibly referring to text messages about the plot.

“These text messages indicate the F.B.I. was pushing their paid agent to actively recruit people into an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy,” Hills wrote in a filing last year.

In response, federal prosecutors wrote that the defendants in the plot were not entrapped and said the FBI wasn’t involved in furthering the scheme to kidnap Whitmer. Kessler, the assistant U.S. Attorney, wrote that the “defendants were predisposed to join the kidnapping and explosive conspiracies” and did not need the FBI’s help.

With weeks to go before the hotly contested October 2020 General Election between then-President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the FBI announced that it had broken up a plot to kidnap Whitmer, leading many to question the timing of the announcement. More controversy surrounding the case emerged when FBI special agent Richard Trask, who was involved, was arrested in June 2021 for allegedly attacking his wife.

Weeks after the plot was announced, Biden named Whitmer—who has been floated as a possible Democrat presidential candidate—to serve as the co-chair of his inaugural committee. She was not physically harmed in the plot.

Reuters contributed to this report.