A federal jury on Tuesday convicted two of the plot’s organisers responsible for the kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer guilty.
Barry Croft and Adam Fox were found guilty on several counts, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass devastation and kidnapping.
The convictions follow a mistrial in a previous case against the two men because the jury could not reach a consensus.
“You can’t just strap on an AR-15 and body armor and go snatch the governor,” Assistant US Attorney Nils Kessler told jurors in closing
“But that wasn’t the defendants’ ultimate goal,” Kessler said. “They wanted to set off a second American Civil War, a second American Revolution, something that they call the boogaloo. And they wanted to do it for a long time before they settled on Gov. Whitmer.”
In an apparent act of rage related to coronavirus limitations, the two men intended to abduct Whitmer at her vacation home, along with a number of other men, according to federal authorities.
According to the prosecution, the group had monitored the Democratic governor’s residence and engaged in combat training drills in the field to get ready for the ambush.
Four of them met with a covert FBI agent to purchase $4,000 worth of explosives for the scam, and they were all detained following that meeting.
An Army veteran who joined Croft and Fox’s paramilitary group first alerted the authorities to the idea, but he became concerned when the topic of killing police came up.
Defense lawyers claimed that Croft and Fox were entrapment victims and that they were merely “big talkers” venting.
It’s not Russia, here. Our country doesn’t operate like this, Croft’s attorney Joshua Blanchard told the jury. “You don’t get to suspect someone of committing a crime just because you disagree with what they say or their political views,” the speaker said.
At sentencing, Croft and Fox could receive a life sentence.
