In retrial, jury finds two men guilty of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Whitmer
A Michigan jury Tuesday found two men guilty of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, after a jury in April was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on charges against the defendants.
After starting deliberations Monday afternoon, the jury also found Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. guilty of attempting to obtain a weapon of mass destruction, the Associated Press reported.
Croft, a 46-year-old Delaware trucker, was also convicted on another explosives-related charge.
In April, a jury acquitted the men after their attorneys successfully argued the FBI set them up by using at least a dozen informants and undercover agents.
Two other men have already pleaded guilty to the kidnapping plot .
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler told jurors during the second trial that the defendants "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."
Defense attorneys argued that the FBI entrapped their clients and were involved in every crucial event in the plot.
"This isn’t Russia. This isn’t how our country works," Croft's attorney, Joshua Blanchard, said before jurors. "You don’t get to suspect that someone might commit a crime because you don’t like things that they say, that you don’t like their ideologies."