Ringleader who plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is sentenced to 16 years in prison

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The co-leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison for conspiring to abduct her and blow up a bridge to ease an escape.

Adam Fox returned to federal court Tuesday, four months after he and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

They were accused of being at the helm of a wild plot to whip up anti-government extremists just before the 2020 presidential election. They were arrested along with 12 others. 

The government had pushed for a life sentence, saying Croft offered bomb-making skills and ideology while Fox was the 'driving force urging their recruits to take up arms, kidnap the governor and kill those who stood in their way.'

But Judge Robert J. Jonker said that while Fox's sentence was needed as a punishment and deterrent to future similar acts, the government's request for life in prison is 'not necessary to achieve those purposes.'

'It's too much. Something less than life gets the job done in this case,' Jonker said, later adding that 16 years in prison 'is still in my mind a very long time.'

Adam Fox returned to federal court Tuesday, four months after he and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was jailed for 16 years and will spend five years on supervised release 

The group of men plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 due to boiling frustrations over COVID-19 restrictions and perceived threats to gun ownership.Whitmer wasn't physically harmed

In addition to the 16-year prison sentence, Fox will have to serve five years of supervised release.

Fox and Croft were convicted at a second trial in August, months after a different jury in Grand Rapids, Michigan, couldn't reach a verdict but acquitted two other men. Croft, a trucker from Bear, Delaware, will be sentenced Wednesday.

Fox and Croft in 2020 met with like-minded provocateurs at a summit in Ohio, trained with weapons in Michigan and Wisconsin and took a ride to 'put eyes' on Whitmer's vacation home with night-vision goggles, according to evidence.

'People need to stop with the misplaced anger and place the anger where it should go, and that's against our tyrannical ... government,' Fox declared that spring, boiling over COVID-19 restrictions and perceived threats to gun ownership.

Whitmer wasn't physically harmed. The FBI, which was secretly embedded in the group, broke things up by fall.

'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 ahead of the hearing.

Barry Croft Jr. was found guilty alongside Adam Fox. The government said Croft offered bomb-making skills and was a co-leader in the foiled plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer

In 2020, Fox, 39, was living in the basement of a Grand Rapids-area vacuum shop, the site of clandestine meetings with members of a paramilitary group and an undercover FBI agent. His lawyer said he was depressed, anxious and smoking marijuana daily.

Christopher Gibbons said a life sentence would be extreme.

Fox was regularly exposed to 'inflammatory rhetoric' by FBI informants, especially Army veteran Dan Chappel, who 'manipulated not only Fox´s sense of 'patriotism' but also his need for friendship, acceptance and male approval,' Gibbons said in a court filing.

He said prosecutors had exaggerated Fox's capabilities, saying he was poor and lacked the capability to obtain a bomb and carry out the plan.

Two men who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and testified against Fox and Croft received substantial breaks:  Ty Garbin already is free after a two-and-a-half year prison term, while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.

In state court, three men recently were given lengthy sentences for assisting Fox earlier in the summer of 2020. Five more are awaiting trial in Antrim County, where Whitmer's vacation home is located.

When the plot was extinguished, Whitmer, a Democrat, blamed then-President Donald Trump saying he had given 'comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division.' In August, 19 months after leaving office, Trump said the kidnapping plan was a 'fake deal.'

How undercover FBI agents infiltrated militia group Wolverine Watchmen to try to take down Gretchen Whitmer's 'kidnappers': IOUs for grenades, incriminating texts and an informant called 'Big Dan' weren't enough to convince jury

Gretchen Whitmer's would-be kidnappers were arrested in October 2020 after plotting for months to kidnap the Democratic Michigan Governor from her vacation home. 

Adam Fox, Daniel Harris, Barry Croft Jr. and Brandon Caserta were all arrested and charged with conspiracy to kidnap the politician. 

After a week long trial, Harris and Caserta were cleared. A jury couldn't reach a decision on the other two defendants, so a mistrial was declared.

It was a huge blow to the government, which had worked for months to convict the men.  

Six men were originally arrested but two flipped on the group - who called themselves The Wolverine Watchmen.  

The trial was combative, with the judge at times warning those testifying and attorneys on both sides to keep a lid on their tempers. 

Here are the key portions of evidence that went behind it. 

Daniel Harris and Adam Fox, two of the men who were tried for conspiracy to kidnap. Harris was cleared but a jury couldn't reach a verdict on Fox

Brandon Caserta (left) and Barry Croft Jr (right). Caserta was cleared and the jury couldn't reach a verdict with Croft

THE UNDECOVER FBI AGENTS 

The 'plan' was unraveled by FBI agents Tim Bates and Mark Schweers. 

Posing as a man called 'Red', Bates plotted with the group on how they were going to snatch Whitmer. Defense attorneys argued entrapment, claiming that if he hadn't been involved, the plot would never have been developed much less come to fruition. 

They said it was nothing but 'stoned talk' that the government turned into a real conspiracy.  Schweers and Bates both testified at trial. 

Schweers told how one of the group told him that he wanted to tie Whitmer - who he called 'the tyrant' - to a table and pose for a photo with her like they had performed 'the biggest drug bust'. 

Agent Mark Schweers told the jury that he was posing as someone with like-minded views from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when he met Adam Fox in the basement of a vacuum shop in suburban Grand Rapids, a hideaway accessed by a trap door.

Fox didn’t know that Schweers was wearing a recording device as he talked excitedly about attacking the Michigan Capitol, teaming up with a militia called the Wolverine Watchmen, and restoring a “constitutional republic.”

“We want her flex-cuffed on a table while we all pose and get our pictures taken like we just made the biggest drug bust in... history,' Fox said of Whitmer, laughing and using profanities.

The other agent is Tim Bates. He convinced the group to give him 'IOUs' to get $4,000 of explosives that was needed to carry out the plot.  

He said it was his job to ensure the group did not actually go out and buy  

'BIG DAN' THE INFORMANT 

One of the key witnesses in the trial was a confidential informant named 'Big Dan', a former Army sergeant. 

He testified that he joined the group to hone and keep up his gun skills but that he became disillusioned with them when they starting scheming violence against Whitmer. 

His real name is Dan Chapel. 

A courtroom sketch of Dan Chapel, known to the group as 'Big Dan,' who was a US Postal Service worker, a retired Army sergeant and firearms instructor

It was an unusual odyssey for Chapel, 35, a postal worker, self-described libertarian and gun rights advocate who said he was simply looking for ways to keep his firearm skills sharp after serving in Iraq. 

Chapel became especially close to Adam Fox, who is described as a leader of the scheme, secretly recording hours of conversations in 2020, participating in gun training and making road trips to northern Michigan to look at Whitmer's vacation home.  

A TRAIL OF INCRIMINATING TEXTS AND SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS PLOTTING THE KIDNAPPING 

Jurors saw chilling social media posts by two people charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor, including references to hanging public officials and attacking authorities, even if it might end in death.

'The government has stolen enough from me,' Brandon Caserta said on Facebook in late March 2020, a few weeks after COVID-19 hit the state and around the same time that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer began a series of economic restrictions to fight the spread.

'They’ve claimed ownership over my body and my property. Now they take away my place to live and source of income because of this?'

In the months that followed, Caserta and others trained to snatch Whitmer from her vacation home, according to evidence, before the FBI arrested the antigovernment extremists in October 2020.

Digital maps of the Elk Rapids area were saved on the phone of Adam Fox, 38, an alleged leader of the scheme, agent Chelsea Williams told jurors Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors are poised to finish their case Wednesday, which will be the 13th day of trial in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

They’re trying to show in the final stretch that four men charged with conspiring to kidnap Whitmer were firmly committed to a plan without influence by informants or undercover FBI agents. 

Defendant Daniel Harris, a 23-year-old former Marine from Lake Orion, Michigan, suggested the conspirators could 'just mug the pizza guy and take his shir(t)," adding: 'Just take a pistol and like 3 rounds.' 

THE ENTRAPMENT DEFENSE: IT WAS NOTHING MORE THAN 'STONED CRAZY TALK' UNTIL FBI AGENTS GOT INVOLVED

Defense attorneys argued entrapment and claimed that the men would never have fallen through on what they were talking about. 

'The point is, everything that moves this case forward … it’s the government moving all of it,' Fox’s lawyer, Christopher Gibbons, told jurors.

The training camp firing range and alleged bomb testing area, where Plotters met up and plotted to kidnap GOV Gretchen Whitmer. Views at the training camp where they shot and apparently blew up bombs

The training camp trailer with Confederate flag stickers among others next to the firing range and alleged bomb testing area , where Plotters met up and plotted to kidnap GOV Gretchen Whitmer. Views at the training camp where they shot and apparently blew up bombs at the hidden camp deep in the woods near the Town of Luther in Michigan

Joshua Blanchard, Croft’s attorney, said agents secretly recorded the men when they were 'absolutely out-of-your-mind stoned.' In one session, he said, they spoke about strapping Whitmer to a kite to transport her.

'They knew it was stoned-crazy talk and not a plan,' he said of the FBI.

Judges usually assess before trial whether there’s a minimum level of evidence to justify an entrapment defense.

The presiding judge, Robert Jonker, initially said he would wait until evidence was entered at trial, but abruptly changed his mind during opening statements after defense lawyers violated his instructions, repeatedly suggesting the FBI entrapped their clients.

After asking jurors to step out of the room, the judge said he realized waiting to rule was untenable since the defense had structured their whole strategy around an entrapment defense. He told them they could be upfront with jurors about it.