A ringleader within the failed plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 shouldn’t receive a life sentence in prison, in response to his attorney.
In a sentencing memorandum filed late Friday for Adam Fox, attorney Christopher Gibbons argued the federal government used “exaggerated language to create the false narrative of a terrifying para-military leader.”
Gibbons claims the federal government used “histrionic descriptions” of Fox, including comparing him to the Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh who killed 168 people, that don’t represent “his actual intentions or actual capabilities.”
“Adam Fox was an unemployed vacuum repairman who was venting his frustrations on social media but abiding by the laws of the State of Michigan,” he said.
The filing in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, got here 4 days after federal prosecutors said that a life sentence behind bars could be justified for Fox’s attempting to “light the hearth of a second revolution,” in response to federal court records.
Fox and a number of other other men planned to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home in 2020 in response to anger stirred up by COVID-19 restrictions, federal prosecutors said.
The boys were arrested after 4 of them attempted to purchase $4,000 in explosives from an undercover FBI agent.
Fox was convicted in August alongside Barry Croft, the plot’s other leader, on charges of kidnapping conspiracy and conspiring to acquire a weapon of mass destruction.
Two other men charged within the scheme were acquitted in April, while two others pleaded guilty to conspiring to the kidnapping conspiracy.
US District Judge Robert Jonker will sentence Fox on Dec. 27, while Croft will probably be sentenced on Dec. 28.
With Post wires.