Jury convicts Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr. in Whitmer kidnapping plot

In a do-over for the government, a federal jury in Grand Rapids has convicted two men charged with plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer out of anger over her handling of the pandemic, ending a dramatic trial that highlighted the growth violent extremism in America.

The jury deliberated for about eight hours before delivering the guilty verdicts against Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. , who were convicted on all counts and face up to life in prison when they are sentenced at a later date.

Fox and Croft were convicted of kidnapping conspiracy and conspiracy to possess weapons of mass destruction. Croft was convicted on an additional weapons charge.

The men were judged by a second, more diverse jury than in the first trial, which ended with no convictions for the government. Two men were acquitted in that trial and the jury deadlocked on charges against Fox and Croft Jr., triggering a mistrial that prompted the government to try again.

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The historic case ends with four men going to prison, and two men going free, two years after the FBI arrested all six defendants on charges they plotted to kidnap the governor from her vacation home out of anger over her lockdown orders and mask mandates, and blow up a bridge near her home to slow down law enforcement.

The defense long argued that this was a case of entrapment, that the defendants were merely tough-talking potheads who were venting about their government, and that rogue FBI agents and informants set them up.

The prosecution, however, argued the men did a lot more than talk - they took action to carry out their plan, including casing Whitmer's vacation home twice, building explosives, holding secret meetings, and practicing breaking and entering drills in shoot-houses they built that mimicked her cottage.

The jury spent two weeks listening to testimony from FBI agents, informants, and wiretapped conversations from the defendants themselves, in which they discussed kidnapping "that tyrant bitch" and trying her "for treason."

Please return to Freep.com for more on this developing story.

Tresa Baldas:tbaldas@freepreeson.com