Feds say life in prison 'sufficient' for Whitmer kidnap plotter

[marmar]

(Detroit News) A life prison sentence for Adam Fox, a convicted ringleader of a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is sufficient for trying to "light the fire of a second revolution," federal prosecutors said late Monday.

The maximum penalty could help deter terrorism and widespread, anti-government, militia extremism that has flared in the two years since Fox and a group plotted to kidnap Whitmer, angered by the governor's pandemic restrictions, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

The memo was filed one week before the 39-year-old Potterville resident is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Grand Rapids for heading a plot that represented the largest domestic terrorism case in a generation that has shed light on political extremism in Michigan. So far, seven people have been convicted on state or federal charges related to the plot while an eighth individual, FBI informant Stephen Robeson, was convicted of a federal gun crime.

Delaware truck driver Barry Croft, the other convicted ringleader, is set to be sentenced Dec. 28.

"When the aim of that kidnapping is to terrorize the people and affect the conduct of government, it is so pernicious that only the most serious sanction is sufficient," Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler wrote. "The sentence imposed by this court should reflect the incredibly dangerous threat posed by Adam Fox and Barry Croft’s attempt to light the fire of a second revolution." ................(more)

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/12/05/whitmer-kidnap-plotter-adam-fox-life-sentence-sufficient-feds/69703476007/