LOCKED UP

Trucker Gets 19 Years in Prison for Plotting to Kidnap Gretchen Whitmer

Barry Croft was the last member of the group of plotters to be sentenced on federal charges.

The co-ringleader of a group of Michigan militiamen who plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced to 19 years in prison Wednesday. Barry Croft Jr., a trucker, was the last of four men to be sentenced on federal charges; co-ringleader Adam Fox was handed a 16-year sentence on Tuesday. The men were convicted of conspiracy charges after the feds infiltrated their wild scheme to snatch Whitmer from her vacation home just before the 2020 election and put her on show trial. The group was furious at the state’s tough COVID restrictions and Whitmer’s stance on gun control. “The abduction of the governor was only meant to be the beginning of Croft’s reign of terror,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler wrote in a court filing arguing for Croft to get a life sentence. “He called for riots, ‘torching’ government officials in their sleep and setting off a ‘domino’ effect of violence across the country.”