2022-04-09 at 5:36 AM UTC
The historic Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot case ended with no convictions Friday, delivering a blow to the government as it failed to convince a jury that four militia members were domestic terrorists determined to harm the governor because of her COVID-19 restrictions.
The jury declared two of those men not guilty, but deadlocked on the charges against the other two, who will be retried.
Defendant Daniel Harris — the only one who testified at the trial — was acquitted on all four counts, with the judge telling the 24-year-old Lake Orion man he would be free to go Friday afternoon.
Top, from left: Adam Fox and Barry Croft
Bottom, from left: Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta
Brandon Caserta, 33, of Canton, was acquitted on the only count he faced: kidnapping conspiracy. He, like Harris, was freed Friday — which is also his birthday — after more than 18 months in jail following his arrest in an FBI sting outside an Ypsilanti warehouse.
"What the FBI did was unconscionable," Caserta's lawyer, Michael Hills, said outside the courthouse. He has long argued that his client and the others were entrapped by rogue FBI informants and agents, including one who ran a cybersecurity company while investigating the case.
"To me, this was a signal," Hills said of the verdict. "A rogue FBI agent trying to line his own pockets with his own cybersecurity company, pushing a conspiracy that just never was, never was going to be. Our governor was never in any danger. And I think the jury — they didn't get all of it — but they smelled enough of it."
Family members gasped and broke into tears as Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker read the not guilty verdicts. Caserta's sister declined to answer questions as she left the courthouse, but smiled and told reporters that Friday was Caserta's 34th birthday.
Caserta and Harris thanked their lawyers after the verdict was read, then embraced one another.
The jury deadlocked on all counts against Adam Fox, 39, of Potterville, and Barry Croft, 46, of Delaware — whom the prosecution described as the ringleaders — so a mistrial was declared.
After the verdicts came down, Caserta went for a walk in downtown Grand Rapids, avoiding the news media. Family members of Caserta and Harris declined to answer questions from reporters as they left the courthouse.
The sister of Brandon Caserta walks with a bin of Caserta's clothing to the parking garage after the jury found Brandon not guilty on the charge of kidnapping conspiracy Friday, April 8, 2022, outside the Gerald R. Ford Federal Building in downtown Grand Rapids.
Harris' father declined to answer questions as well, telling reporters: "It's our time."
U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge said the government plans to retry Fox and Croft.
"Obviously, we're disappointed with the outcome. We thought we had enough for the jury to convict based on the evidence we put forward, but we still believe in the jury system," Birge said. "We have two defendants that are awaiting trial and will get back to work on that."
Birge declined to answer questions from news media after his initial statement.
Fox and Croft will remain jailed in the Newaygo County Jail pending retrial.
"I think that the trial here demonstrated that there's some serious shortcomings in the case," said Christopher Gibbons, Fox's lawyer. "Obviously, with acquittals occurring with Mr. Caserta and Mr. Harris, it says a lot about what's going on in the case and in the proofs."
During trial, Gibbons pushed back on the government's assertion that Fox was the ringleader in the alleged plot. In his closing argument, Gibbons painted Fox as a misfit who couldn't stop smoking pot, and whose only friends were FBI undercover agents and informants who were spying on him.
"Adam is disappointed that he's going to be detained a bit longer, but we're waiting for a second trial and we'll eventually get what we want — which is the truth and justice," Gibbons said.
The jury's decision ended a case that highlighted the growth of extremism in America as prosecutors sought to punish what they viewed as violent extremism targeted at government officials.
In a statement released after the verdicts, Whitmer's office expressed concern that the outcome of the case may embolden future extremists.
The family of Daniel Harris quickly walk away from a barrage of media after a jury acquitted Harris on all counts Friday, April 8, 2022, outside the Gerald R. Ford Federal Building in downtown Grand Rapids.
"Today, Michiganders and Americans — especially our children — are living through the normalization of political violence. The plot to kidnap and kill a governor may seem like an anomaly. But we must be honest about what it really is: the result of violent, divisive rhetoric that is all too common across our country," the statement reads. "There must be accountability and consequences for those who commit heinous crimes. Without accountability, extremists will be emboldened."
Attorney for Adam Fox, Christopher Gibbons, leaves the Gerald Ford R. Ford Building and U.S. Courthouse on April 8, 2022, just before lunch after jurors in the Governor Whitmer kidnapping case sent U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker a question about being stuck on certain charges. Gibbons said unanimity would be ideal with the jury but he and his client will just have to wait and see.
The verdicts triggered all sorts of reaction within the legal community, with lawyers expressing surprise and confusion about the outcome that left them wondering why the jurors acquitted some, but not others.
Veteran defense attorney Mike Rataj, who was part of the defense team in the 2012 Hutaree militia trial — which also was a failure for the government — believes the credibility of the undercover informants and FBI agents was a key issue at trial. The location of the trial and where the jurors came from may have also played a role, he said.
It was tried in Grand Rapids, with many of the jurors coming from northern Michigan.
“Some of these jurors come from rural places, where people are very distrustful of the government,” Rataj said. “I think it's safe to assume the jurors did not believe the government undercovers.”
Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, who believed the government had a compelling case, said she has "great respect for the decisions of jurors," noting they hear every word of testimony and see the witnesses and evidence live. Not having been in the jury box, she noted, it's difficult to know "what aspect of the evidence the jury found unconvincing because as contained in the indictment, the evidence sounded very strong."
But she's uneasy about the outcome.
"This verdict concerns me because it could embolden other anti-government extremists to engage in dangerous conduct in the name of vigilante justice," McQuade said. "In a time when we see a growing number of threats of violence against public officials, it is important to hold such conduct accountable."
McQuade added: "I am hopeful that they will retry the case against Fox and Croft, and that a different set of jurors may be able to reach a verdict."
The verdicts were read after the jury twice announced Friday morning that it had deadlocked.
The judge stressed: "You have to vote your own conscience at the end of the day. … See if anything moves you on a locked decision."
The jury quickly returned with its partial verdicts.
The jury spent three weeks listening to testimony about how four like-minded men bonded over social media, vented about the government controlling their lives, and then came together through a group called the Wolverine Watchmen — a self-proclaimed Michigan militia that wanted to spark a second civil war, and use the Whitmer kidnap as a starting point.
To carry out the kidnap plan, witnesses testified, the group also plotted to blow up a bridge near Whitmer's vacation house to slow down law enforcement and experimented with explosives to make that happen — an allegation that triggered the weapons of mass destruction charges that carry a life in prison sentence.
U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan Andrew Birge says they were disappointed as he speaks to the media outside of the Gerald Ford R. Ford Building and U.S. Courthouse in Grand Rapids on April 8, 2022, after two kidnap plot suspects were found not guilty and a mistrial declared for other two in the Governor Whitmer kidnapping case.
The plot, though, was foiled on Oct. 7, 2020, in an FBI sting outside an Ypsilanti warehouse. An undercover informant had driven the suspects to the warehouse, tricking them into thinking they were going there to make a down payment on explosives, pick up some military gear, and then head to Buffalo Wild Wings for beer and chicken.
Instead, FBI agents were there waiting with handcuffs.
The defendants spent 18 months jailed as they waited for their case to go to trial, maintaining they were victims of entrapment — that is, the FBI came up with the kidnap idea and pressured them into saying and doing things they wouldn't have otherwise.
According to trial testimony, the suspects spent months discussing different ways that they could attack the government for, as they saw it, infringing on their freedoms. There was also talk about storming the state Capitol, though the suspects didn't think that was doable so they decided to kidnap the governor instead, according to trial testimony by undercover FBI agents and informants.
This is the map Adam Fox drew of the area around Whitmer's cottage, as part of the alleged planning for the kidnapping plot. Prosecutors have redacted parts of the map so that it does not show where the home is located.
The alleged kidnap plan would work like this: The suspects would snatch Whitmer from her cottage, then drive her to the shoreline of Lake Michigan, put her in a boat, and either leave her stranded in the lake, or transport her to Wisconsin to hang her.
The defense argued that was all fantasy talk carried out by men who were stoned most of the time, and that they had no real plan or ever intended to kidnap Whitmer — that it was all tough talk by men blowing off steam.
Moreover, the defense argued that the FBI ran the whole show and masterminded the entire kidnap plot to advance their own careers.
The prosecution disagreed, arguing there was no evidence at trial that any informant or agent devised the kidnap plot, or encouraged anyone to kidnap the governor.
And the suspects did a lot more than talk, prosecutors said, arguing the defendants took numerous steps to make this happen, including: casing the governor's vacation house twice, drawing a map of the area, buying $3,800 binoculars, building a model of her cottage to practice extracting a person, communicating on encrypted chats to conceal their activities and practicing using explosives to carry out their plan. According to multiple witnesses, the suspects practiced building and detonating explosive devices to help carry out their kidnap plan.
The witness who helped crack the case was a former Wolverine Watchmen member who told jurors he quit the group after hearing the men talking about killing police, told his cop friend about it, and then got a call from the FBI asking him whether he would go undercover. He agreed, and became known to the group as Big Dan.
The defense argued that Big Dan was the backbone of the government's case and the true leader of the kidnap plot — maintaining he incited the suspects, organized most of the meetings and trainings, and ran the whole show.
It was Big Dan, the defense argued, who drove the suspects to a warehouse in Ypsilanti, tricking them into thinking they were going for beers and wings and to pick up military gear, but got them arrested instead.
Two of those men who got arrested in the sting were codefendants Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks. Both men cut deals in the case, pleaded guilty and testified against the others at trial, telling the jury they were willing participants in the kidnap plot, and so were their cohorts. No one entrapped them, they said, or their codefendants.
Garbin is serving a six-year prison sentence for his role, but could get more time trimmed off due to his cooperation. Franks has not yet been sentenced.
Only one of the defendants took the stand in his own defense at trial: Harris, who got combative with the prosecutor and called Big Dan the informant "a b—-" during his testimony. Harris denied being part of any plot to kidnap the governor, telling the jury that Big Dan was the real leader of the whole thing.
Two of the four defendants put on no defense at all, but let the jury decide the case based on what the government presented.
Multiple undercover FBI agents and informants who had infiltrated the group also testified at trial, and corroborated many of the recorded statements that were played for the jury.
All were charged with kidnapping conspiracy, which carries a maximum life sentence in prison. Harris, Fox and Croft were charged with weapons of mass destruction.
Croft and Harris were also charged with possession of an unregistered destructive device, and Harris was charged with possession of an illegal short-barrel rifle.
Whitmer kidnap plot trial:What we know about jurors deciding historic verdict
RIP STL1
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this
post didn't die in a fire!
2022-04-09 at 11:04 AM UTC
Nobody would ever harm a politician . This isn't an action movie
2022-04-09 at 11:37 AM UTC
Sudo
Black Hole
[my hereto riemannian peach]
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post didn't die in a fire!
2022-04-09 at 1:27 PM UTC
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this
post didn't die in a fire!
2022-04-09 at 4:45 PM UTC
the fbi supplied them explosives in smalla mounts and when they went to purchase bulk of them they yee haw'ed cousin jeffrey the secret atf agent and brought them into the plan, when they had some large portion of the money they went to exchange it with their contact for low prices and were convicted of conspiracy in these multitude of charges
is that entrpment? IDK the government targets different groups by commonly using moles in various extremist organizations and often times take down people when they've finally fulfilled all the elements of a crime (Handing money in this case)
2022-04-09 at 4:48 PM UTC
my understanding was they were militia members that wanted to put her on trial for mask mandates and film it and have a people's court on Facebook live in northern wisconsin after they got her at the cottage home comin back, they were gonna use a bomb to destroy a bridge they believed would be critical for any rescuers.
BUt this isn't a movie lol and the government is everywhere and in everything.
in china if u think bad things about the government it will be discovered and you will be subjected to discipline.
that's the shit we need here
2022-04-09 at 8:10 PM UTC
Typical white male privilege that they are not rotting in prison for the rest of their lives. As a white male myself, I find it sickening. We need to do better as a people.
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