Lack of Convictions in Whitmer Kidnap Trial

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (The Detroit News/TNS) — The largest domestic terrorism trial in recent U.S. history ended with no convictions Friday, delivering a blow to a case about a kidnapping plot targeting Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that has been dogged by controversy, scandal and the intense focus of a nation grappling with the rise of violent extremism.

Jurors acquitted two accused plotters and deadlocked on two alleged ringleaders after defense lawyers raised questions about FBI agents’ misconduct and informants who were credited with thwarting the plot.

The verdicts came one year after the first whiff of trouble in the high-profile case, the indictment of rogue FBI informant Stephen Robeson on a gun crime. The Wisconsin man’s legal problems were followed by defense lawyers alleging FBI agents and informants orchestrated the conspiracy and entrapped a ragtag band of outcasts who harbored antigovernment views and anger over Whitmer’s COVID-19 restrictions.

Prosecutors Friday vowed to retry accused ringleaders Adam Fox, 38, of Potterville and Barry Croft, 46, of Delaware, who remained in jail Friday. Their acquitted co-defendants, Lake Orion resident Daniel Harris, 24, and Brandon Caserta, 34, of Canton Township left federal court in downtown Grand Rapids free for the first time in 18 months following what Caserta’s lawyer called “the conspiracy that just never was.”

“Never was, never was going to be,” his lawyer, Michael Hills, told reporters. “Our governor was never in any danger.

“I think the jury, even though they didn’t get all of it,” Hills added, “they smelled enough of it.”

The four men in the Whitmer kidnapping case faced kidnapping conspiracy charges, a felony punishable by up to life in prison. Three faced multiple charges, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

The west Michigan trial coincided with jurors in federal court in Washington, D.C., hearing the first cases involving people charged in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Together, the trials provided the first tests of federal laws being used to punish extremist behavior that erupted nationally in 2020 and 2021 around the presidential election and pandemic.

The trial lasted 20 days, including 13 days of testimony and approximately 38 hours of jury deliberations spanning five days. Anonymous jurors — six men, six women, all white — heard hours of closing arguments and instructions last week after testimony and a multimedia case from the government.

“We thought the jury would convict beyond reasonable doubt based on the evidence we put forward,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge told reporters outside the courthouse. “We believe in the jury system. We have two defendants awaiting trial.”

Defense lawyers and legal experts analyzed what went wrong for the government in what was considered a can’t-miss case involving violent extremism. The defeat followed a decadelong string of successes for the Justice Department in high-profile cases in Michigan, everything from the trial of underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to the corruption conviction of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Defense lawyers insisted there was no plot, just manipulations by a team of FBI agents who were opportunistic, and troubled.

“I think the trial here has demonstrated that there’s some serious shortcomings in the case,” Fox’s lawyer, Christopher Gibbons, said outside court Friday. “Obviously with acquittals occurring with Mr. Caserta and Mr. Harris, that says a lot about what is going on in the case.”

FBI Special Agent Richard Trask served as the FBI’s public face in the Whitmer case, testifying in federal court about the investigation, until he was arrested in July, accused of spousal abuse, fired and convicted of assault.

Trask was not called as a government witness during the trial. Neither were FBI Special Agent Henrik Impola, who has faced unproven perjury allegations in an unrelated case, and FBI Special Agent Jayson Chambers. He was accused by defense lawyers of trying to profit off the case by creating a cybersecurity firm while working for the FBI.

“To me, this was a signal. A rogue FBI agent trying to line his own pockets with his own cybersecurity company and then pushing the conspiracy that just never was,” Hills told reporters.

Still, prosecutors insisted as recently as Friday that the four defendants didn’t just talk about wanting to kidnap and kill Whitmer, they planned, prepared and armed themselves to spark a second civil war.

The government was armed with what legal experts considered overwhelming evidence amassed during a roughly five-month investigation that culminated in October 2020. The trial included testimony from convicted plotters Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, who told jurors the conspiracy originated with the plotters.

Eight others are awaiting trial on state charges.

The federal trial also featured a multimedia presentation from the government that included secret recordings of the defendants building bombs in Wisconsin, firing weapons in rural Michigan, going on a night surveillance run past the governor’s cottage and griping about tyrannical government officials during a hotel meeting in Ohio.

Defense lawyers, however, pinned blame on the FBI agents and informants, including “Big” Dan Chappel. He orchestrated the conspiracy, manipulating the defendants from spring 2020 and into the fall, they argued.

“When I look at what happened in this case, I am ashamed of the behavior of the leading law enforcement agency in the United States,” Croft’s lawyer, Josh Blanchard, told jurors. “The investigation was an embarrassment. There was no plan and there was no agreement.”

There was no immediate comment from an FBI spokesperson Friday.