First day ends with no verdict in Gov. Whitmer plot
GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. >> Jurors returned to court to ask a question Monday but offered no verdict during the first day of deliberations in the trial of four men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker told jurors to “find a good distraction,” maybe the NCAA men's basketball championship, and return Tuesday “ready to engage, fresh.”
Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta are charged with a kidnapping conspiracy. Three men also face additional charges, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, namely an explosive.
The jury asked the judge for a definition of “weapon” at mid-afternoon Monday, but otherwise gave no indication of the progress of deliberations.
“Something that can be used to injure, kill or destroy someone or something,” Jonker said after consulting with prosecutors and defense lawyers. “So if that helps — I hope — great. If it doesn't, just let us know.”
The trial has lasted 16 days, including 13 days of testimony. The jury heard hours of closing arguments and instructions Friday.
Jonker last week told jurors that the men could be convicted of conspiracy, even if a kidnapping did not occur in fall 2020.
A key factor, if the jury finds it, would be a “mutual understanding either spoken or unspoken” between two or more people in the group, the judge said.
Prosecutors said the plot was simmering for months, leavened by anti-government extremism and anger over Whitmer's COVID-19 restrictions. With undercover FBI agents and informants embedded in the group, the men trained with a crudely built “shoot house” to replicate her vacation home, prosecutors allege.
There is no dispute that the alleged leaders, Fox and Croft, traveled to Elk Rapids, Michigan, to scout the governor's property and a nearby bridge that same weekend in September 2020.
Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, who pleaded guilty and testified against the four men, were on the same road trip, along with covert investigators.