JACKSON, Mich. — A judge on Thursday handed down the longest prison terms so far in the plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor, sentencing three men who forged an early alliance with a leader of the scheme before the FBI broke it up in 2020.
Joe Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar were not charged with having a direct role in the conspiracy. But they were members of a paramilitary group that trained with Adam Fox, who separately faces a possible life sentence on Dec. 27 for his federal conviction.
The trio was convicted in October of providing material support for a terrorist act, which carries a maximum term of 20 years, and two other crimes.
Musico was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years in prison, followed by his son-in-law Morrison at 10 years and Bellar at seven. They will be eligible for release after serving those terms, but any decision rests solely with the Michigan parole board.
Speaking in a recorded video, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer urged Judge Thomas Wilson to “impose a sentence that meets the gravity of the damage they have done to our democracy.”
“A conspiracy to kidnap and kill a sitting governor of the state of Michigan is a threat to democracy itself,” said Whitmer, who added that she now scans crowds for risks and worries “about the fate of everyone near me.”
Wilson presided over the first batch of convictions in state court, following the high-profile conspiracy convictions of four others in federal court. Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were described as captains of an incredible plan to snatch Whitmer from her vacation home, seeking to inspire a U.S. civil war known as the “boogaloo.”
Whitmer, a Democrat recently elected to a second term, was never physically harmed. Undercover FBI agents and informants were inside Fox’s group for months, and the scheme was broken up with 14 arrests in October 2020.
Someone convicted of more than one crime in Michigan typically gets prison sentences that simply run at the same time. But Wilson took the unusual step of ordering consecutive sentences for Musico and Morrison, making their minimum stays longer. Besides a conviction for supporting terrorism, the three men were also convicted of a gun crime and for being members of a gang.