Delaware truck driver sentenced to 19 years in Michigan Gov. Whitmer kidnapping plot case

The second of two leaders of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been sentenced to 19 years in prison in one of the most high-profile cases of domestic terrorism in recent years.

Barry Croft Jr., a truck driver from Bear, Delaware, was spared a life sentence Wednesday. The decision came after U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker on Tuesday sentenced his co-leader, Adam Fox, to 16 years.

Croft planned to kidnap Whitmer from her Michigan vacation home and ease the kidnappers' escape from law enforcement by blowing up a bridge, prosecutors argued.

Prosecutors recommended a life sentence, reminding the judge that social media posts and secretly recorded conversations revealed Croft's desire to spark a “reign of terror” in 2020.

Croft, 47, was arrested in New Jersey in October 2020, one day after four other men, including Fox, were arrested in an FBI sting.

Who has been sentenced in Gov. Whitmer case?

Croft was the final of four conspirators convicted in the plot to be sentenced.

In August, a federal jury in Grand Rapids found Croft and Fox guilty of plotting to kidnap Whitmer out of anger over her handling of the pandemic. Croft was also convicted of possessing an improvised explosive device in the form of a commercial firework refashioned with shrapnel to serve as a hand grenade.

Two other men, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta, were found not guilty in a separate trial in April. A first trial resulted in hung juries for both Fox and Croft.

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Two men who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and testified against Fox and Croft also served time for the crime: Ty Garbin is free after serving a 2½-year prison term, while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.

Three members of a paramilitary group that trained with Fox were convicted in October of providing material support for a terrorist act. Their sentences, handed down earlier this month in state court, ranged between 7 to 12 years.

Five more are awaiting trial in Antrim County, where Whitmer's vacation home is located.

What did Barry Croft do?

The government said Croft offered bomb-making skills and ideology while Fox was the “driving force urging their recruits to take up arms, kidnap the governor and kill those who stood in their way.”

Their arrest, as well as the capture of 12 others, was a stunning coda to months of tumultuous political turmoil related to the COVID-19 pandemic leading up to the 2020 presidential election.

“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,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a statement.

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What did the defendants say?

The defendants have long argued that this was a case of entrapment — that rogue FBI agents and informants were trying to build their own careers, concocted the kidnapping idea and then enticed the defendants to say and do things they wouldn't otherwise do.

Contributing: Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Barry Croft of Delaware gets 19 years in Michigan governor kidnap case