The leader of a foiled plot by members of right-wing militia groups to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Tuesday in a U.S. District Court, prosecutors said.
Adam Fox, 39, was found guilty in August by a federal court jury in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on one count each of conspiring to abduct Whitmer, a Democrat, and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in a scheme prosecutors said was intended to spark a “second American Revolution.”
Co-defendant Barry Croft Jr., 47, like Fox a member of the Three Percenters militia group, was convicted of the same charges at the same trial and was scheduled for sentencing on Wednesday.
Prosecutors described Fox as the mastermind behind a plot to break into Whitmer’s vacation home, kidnap her at gunpoint, and take her to stand “trial” on bogus treason charges and face execution.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jonker said he did not think a life sentence, as asked for by prosecutors, was appropriate, but that the crimes required a “significant sentence,” the Detroit News reported. Fox declined to speak during the sentencing and had no reaction to the sentence, the report added.
Reuters
