A federal judge sentenced Adam Fox, convicted in August of conspiring to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, to 16 years in prison on Tuesday.
Fox was one of the ringleaders of the plan against the governor, prosecutors said. The scheme was stopped by federal agents who infiltrated Fox’s circle during a roughly 10-month investigation.
“Mr. Fox was probably a person more than anyone else who was pumping up the idea,” U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker said during Fox’s sentencing, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Fox was convicted of conspiring to kidnap the governor alongside Barry Croft, who prosecutors characterized as the plot’s idea man. In addition to the conspiracy to kidnap charge, the two men were also each convicted of conspiring to obtain a weapon of mass destruction. Croft is scheduled for sentencing on Wednesday.
“Mr. Fox, and his confederate Mr. Croft, were convicted by a jury of masterminding a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan and to use weapons of mass destruction against responding law enforcement,” said Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security for the Department of Justice.
“Today’s sentence reflects the Department of Justice’s unwavering commitment to protecting our elected officials, law enforcement officers, and dedicated public servants from criminal threats and violence — and to holding the perpetrators of such acts fully accountable under the law,” Olsen said.
Though Fox played a key role in attempting to push the plot forward, the conspirator was not a natural leader, Jonker said. The judge appeared to agree with Fox’s attorney Christopher Gibbons’ request for mercy for his client and avoid a life sentence.
“(T)he Government in its memorandum employs exaggerated language to create the false narrative of a terrifying paramilitary leader,” Gibbons argued in court documents, according to the Detroit Free Press. “Adam Fox is described as creating an army with a cadre of operators. … These histrionic descriptions of Adam Fox do not rationally address his actual conduct and they do not accurately reflect either his actual intentions or his actual capabilities.”
“Adam Fox was an unemployed vacuum repairman who was venting his frustrations on social media but abiding by the laws of the State of Michigan. Adam Fox is not the leader of a multistate ‘army’ of domestic terrorists,” Gibbons said.
Fox’s sentencing comes after three men were sentenced in a state court earlier this month for providing material support to a terrorist act in relation to the kidnapping plot.