Federal prosecutors say a life prison sentence would be justified for the leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
FILE - In this courtroom drawing, from left, Brandon Caserta with his attorney Michael Darragh Hills, defendants Adam Fox, center, and Ty Garbin appear during a hearing in federal court in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Oct. 16, 2020. Federal prosecutors told a judge Monday, Dec. 5, 2022, that a life prison sentence would be justified for Fox, the leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov.
“If our elected leaders must live in fear, our representative government suffers. A plan to kidnap and harm the governor of Michigan is not only a threat to the officeholder but to democracy itself,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler wrote. The court filing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, came a week before U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker is scheduled to sentence Fox for conspiracy crimes.Fox’s attorney hadn’t filed a sentencing memo yet. At trial, Christopher Gibbons portrayed him as hapless and virtually homeless, a man with a loud, vile mouth who was living in the basement of a Grand Rapids-area vacuum shop.
"The guidelines provide for a life sentence because Congress recognized kidnapping is an extremely serious offense,” Kessler said. “When the aim of that kidnapping is to terrorize the people and affect the conduct of government, it is so pernicious that only the most serious sanction is sufficient.”
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