Leader in plot to kidnap US governor sentenced to 16 years

One of the men accused of masterminding a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been sentenced to 16 years in prison, four months after he was found guilty in a Michigan court room.

Adam Fox was convicted in August of conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer, a prominent figure in the Democratic Party, and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in the scheme. He had faced a life sentence.

Prosecutors allege that Fox, along with his co-defendant Barry Croft Jr, were the ringleaders of the thwarted operation that was designed to ignite a “second American revolution”.

“Today’s sentence reflects the Department of Justice’s unwavering commitment to protecting our elected officials, law enforcement officers, and dedicated public servants from criminal threats and violence,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement on Tuesday.

But in advance of the hearing, Fox’s defence team argued for leniency, saying he had been “manipulated” into “extremism” partly through the intervention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which had informants among the conspirators.

Fox and Croft were among 13 men arrested in October 2020 as part of the kidnapping plot, which prosecutors say aimed to foment unrest before that year’s US presidential election.

According to prosecutors, both men had ties to a far-right militia group called the Three Percenters, named after the unfounded claim that only 3 percent of early US colonists participated in the American Revolution.

Fox’s defence team sought to depict his mental state as precarious at the time: In 2020, they said, Fox was anxious and depressed, smoking marijuana daily in his apartment in the basement of a Michigan vacuum shop.