(WWJ) U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge announced Thursday that a federal grand jury has indicted six men on a charge of conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta each face up to life in prison if convicted. Fox, Garbin, Franks, Harris, and Caserta are all Michigan residents, and Croft is a resident of Delaware.
The six were previously charged by complaint, but under the U.S. Constitution, the government must present such a felony case to a grand jury and obtain an indictment to proceed with the prosecution.
"The object of the conspiracy was to unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct and carry away, and hold for ransom and reward, or otherwise, the Governor of the State of Michigan," states the indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.
It's alleged planning started back in June when Fox and Croft.met in Ohio to discuss including the kidnapping of state governors, and recruiting others to help. Weeks later, on Aug. 9 is when Fox actually proposed kidnapping Whitmer to the group, the indictment states.
The indictment alleges that over the weekend of Sept. 12-13, 2020, the accused attended a "field training exercise" on Garbin's property near Luther, Michigan. There they practiced assaulting a building in teams, and discussed tactics for fighting the governor's security detail with improvised explosive devices, a projectile launcher, and other weapons. The indictment says explosives were tested near human silhouette targets to assess their effectiveness, and Fox that ordered $4,000 worth of explosives from an undercover FBI agent.
From the night of Sept. 12 into early the next morning, it's alleged that Fox,
Croft, Garbin and Franks conducted a nighttime surveillance of the governor's vacation home and a nearby public boat ramp, using two-way radios and a night-vision scope. On the way to the nighttime surveillance of the vacation home, the indictment says the group stopped to inspect the underside of a highway bridge near the vacation home for a place to mount an explosive charge.
The indictment also says Caserta instructed his co-conspirators in an encrypted video message that, if they were caught doing their reconnaissance, to kill any police officers who refused to leave.
The alleged plot was uncovered by FBI agents, who arrested the suspects on Oct. 7, putting an end to their preparations.
FBI agents of the Detroit Field Office and other members of their Joint Terrorism Task Force, including the Michigan State Police, are conducting the ongoing investigation.
FBI agents and JTTF members in the Baltimore and Milwaukee Field Offices of the FBI are also involved. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Michigan is prosecuting the federal charges. U.S. Attorney's Offices in the Eastern District of Michigan, Western District of Wisconsin, and Delaware have assisted.
