Three men were convicted on Oct. 26 of crimes in connection to a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor.
Jurors convicted Paul Bellar, Joseph Morrison, and Morrison’s father-in-law Pete Musico of providing material support for terrorist acts, membership in a gang, and carrying or possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony.
The trio, all members of the Wolverine Watchmen group, face up to 40 years in prison. They’ll be sentenced in December.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said that the verdicts “are further proof that violence and threats have no place in our politics.”
“These defendants believed violence was an appropriate way to address an ideological grievance. Today’s verdict sends a clear message they were wrong. Violence is never the answer, and the FBI remains committed to investigating and holding accountable anyone who seeks to further an ideological cause through violence,” special agent Mara Schneider, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, added.
Morrison, Bellar, and Musico were among those charged in 2020 for what authorities described as a broad conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. The group was upset about Whitmer imposing harsh restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
State and federal law enforcement relied on undercover agents and informants in derailing the scheme, raising concerns of entrapment. Several defendants were acquitted by a jury. But Jackson County Circuit Judge Thomas Wilson, who oversaw the terrorist acts trial, rejected entrapment arguments.
The defendants held gun drills in rural Jackson County with one of the men who hatched the kidnapping scheme, Adam Fox, who was convicted in September with Barry Croft Jr.
Defense attorneys argued that Morrison, Musico, and Bellar had broken ties with Fox by late summer 2020 when the Whitmer plot came into focus. Unlike Fox and others, they didn’t travel to northern Michigan to scout the governor’s vacation home or participate in a key weekend training session inside a “shoot house.”
“In this country you are allowed to talk the talk, but you only get convicted if you walk the walk,” Musico’s attorney, Kareem Johnson, said in his closing remarks.
Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were acquitted by jurors earlier this year while two other defendants, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, pleaded guilty.
The other men implicated in the scheme are facing charges in state court in Antrim County, the site of Whitmer’s second home. A judge there still must determine whether there is sufficient evidence to send them to trial.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
