Monday, September 23

Man Who Plotted Michigan Governor's Kidnapping Will Sent 16 Years Behind Bars

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Maribel Velazquez

Adam Fox, who participated in a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, returned to federal court Tuesday, four months after he and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted on conspiracy charges in a second trial in August in Grand Rapids, where he was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Fox and Croft were accused of leading the plot to kidnap Whitmer, violently attack her and overthrow the state government, although it was eventually interrupted by the FBI and the governor suffered no physical harm. The terrorist act is related to Whitmer’s COVID-19 restrictions.

Prosecutors said that Croft offered skills and ideology to make bombswhile Fox was the “driving force that urged his recruits to take up arms, kidnap the governor, and kill those who got in their way.”

“Mr. Fox and his accomplice, Mr. Croft, were convicted by a jury of planning a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan and use weapons of mass destruction against law enforcement who responded,” Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Homeland Security Division, said in a statement.

Olsen added that today’s sentence is nothing more than a reflection of the “Justice Department’s Unwavering Commitment to Protecting Our Elected Officialslaw enforcement officers, and dedicated public servants from criminal threats and violence and from holding perpetrators of such actors accountable under the law.”

Croft is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday.but it is expected that he will also receive a sentence like that of his Fox.