Their first trial ended in mistreatment.
Prosecutors allege Fox was the ringleader of a plot to kidnap the Democratic governor from her vacation home, and Croft was part of the plan and used explosives in preparation.
“There’s a lot of things that are complicated today. There’s one thing that’s still very simple — kidnapping is wrong. You can’t just put on an AR-15 and body armor and go grab the governor. You can’t grab anybody. and you certainly can’t make bombs that are intended to maim and kill people. And this case is about a plan to kidnap Governor Whitmer. But that was not the ultimate goal of these defendants,” prosecutor Nils Kessler said during closing arguments discussions on Monday. morning.
“They wanted to spark a second American civil war and a second American revolution,” Kessler said.
Defense attorneys maintained an entrapment defense, arguing that the FBI coerced the defendants into furthering the plot through a collection of undercover agents and confidential informants.
Fox’s attorney told jurors during closing arguments that he was lured into the scheme by the government’s key witness, a confidential informant named “Big Dan.”
“Adam Fox was never predisposed to the crime of kidnapping Governor Whitmer. He talked a big game, but talk is just talk. Adam Fox took no positive step to accomplish the ends, as Special Agent Chambers and Big Dan was pushing so hard to get it,” said Fox’s attorney Christopher Gibbons.
An attorney for Croft told jurors Monday that FBI agents lied on the stand about Croft’s involvement in an effort to arrest him for any crime they could because of his long history of extreme anti-government chatter on the Internet.
“Now as we’ve sat here together over the last two weeks at trial, the government has shown us time and time again that they don’t care that Barry Croft didn’t actually make a deal to kidnap the governor. They think it’s enough that some of the things he says Barry scares them,” Croft’s attorney, Joshua Blanchard, told the court. “They would like to put him in a cage, not because he committed this crime, but because they are afraid of the things that have come out of his mouth.”
None of the defendants testified in their own defense.
A federal judge declared a mistrial for a hung jury in the first trial for Fox and Croft earlier this year. Two other men acquitted in the first trial, Brandon Caserta and Daniel Harris, ultimately did not testify in the defense case despite being subpoenaed by the defense.
Two other co-defendants who pleaded guilty before the first trial, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, testified at both trials.
Croft was also convicted Tuesday of an additional weapons possession charge.
This story has been updated with additional details.
