Photo: Handout / Getty Images
For: Real America News Updated 08 Apr 2022, 54: 08 pm EDT
Federal jury members reached a partial verdict
on Friday, in the case of four men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Two of the defendants were acquitted of all charges, while the jury deadlocked on two other defendants, resulting in a mistrial on those charges.
Defendants Adam Fox , Barry Croft, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta had pleaded not guilty during the trial of the charge of conspiracy to kidnap the governor and faced a life sentence.
Harris and Caserta were found not guilty of the charge of conspiring to kidnap the governor, while the jury could not reach a verdict on Fox and Croft, with which the trial of both has been declared null and possibly another trial will be held.
All but Caserta were also charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property, in a plot to slow down the police response after Whitmer’s kidnapping.
Croft and Harris also faced charges of possessing an “unregistered destructive device”
. The second was also charged with having in his possession a semi-automatic assault rifle that was also not registered.
Harris has been acquitted of all those accusations, while Caserta has been found not guilty only on the count of conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer; and the trial against Fox and Croft for all those charges has been declared null.
The process against the four began in early March in Grand Rapids , Michigan -three of them are from that state, while Croft, considered the de facto leader of the group is from Delaware.
Two other men who were arrested as alleged members of this group, Ty Garbin and Kaleb, pleaded guilty months ago and testified against the other four at this trial, claiming that they all had plans to kidnap Whitmer from her Lake Huron home.
The defendants allegedly intended to take the governor away in a boat, for not agreeing with the restrictions adopted in Michigan to stop the spread of the Covid pandemic.
Whitmer’s chief of staff, Joanne Huls, lamented in a statement “the normalization of political violence.”
“The plan to kidnap and assassinate the governor might seem like an anomaly, but let’s be honest with what it really is: the result of violent, divisive rhetoric, which is all too common in our country. There must be accountability and consequences for those who have committed heinous crimes”, he warned.
In July 2020, the defendants allegedly planned to kidnap or kill the governor at her vacation home on Mackinac Island, Michigan, and allegedly tried to obtain maps and plans of the house to carry out the plan the following October.
During the toughest months of the pandemic, the governor was criticized by conservative groups and far-right militias, and even the now former president Donald Trump (2020-2021), for imposing the closure of commercial activity and crowds in the state due to Covid.
Groups of armed militiamen decided to protest in 2020 in front of the State Capitol against the governor and against what she considered n a violation of her constitutional rights.
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