Iran Press/ America: Barry Croft Jr., 47, a member of the far-right militia group Three Percenters, was convicted in August by a federal jury in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of conspiring to kidnap the Democratic governor.
Adam Fox, 39, who was also a member of the Three Percenters and was convicted in the same trial on the same charges, was sentenced Tuesday to 16 years in prison. The judge also sentenced Fox to five years of supervised release beyond that sentence.
Croft and Fox were among 13 men arrested in October 2020 as part of the kidnapping plot. Prosecutors had accused the two of conspiring to start “a second American revolution” by kidnapping Whitmer.
Fox and Croft had planned to break into Whitmer’s vacation home, kidnap her at gunpoint and try her on false charges of treason and face her execution, prosecutors said.
The pair were also found guilty of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction – an explosive device that prosecutors say was designed to hamper law enforcement’s response to the planned kidnapping. Croft was found guilty of an additional charge of possession of an explosive device.
Prosecutors said the conspiracy, sparked by right-wing militia groups’ opposition to the public health measures Whitmer imposed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed to slide the country into armed conflict drift as a contentious race for the presidency approached in November 2020.
The weapon of mass destruction involved was a bomb, which prosecutors say the conspirators planned to detonate to prevent law enforcement from responding to the hijacking.
Whitmer, co-chair of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign this year, had publicly fallen out with then-President Donald Trump over their COVID-19 policies.
According to Reuters, she accused Trump of fomenting political extremism by repeatedly directing heated rhetoric on the issue, including a campaign rally in Michigan where his criticism of Whitmer drew “lock her up” chants from the crowd.
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