Two of four men were acquitted on Friday in a conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, motivated by fury at the Democrat’s tough Covid-19 restrictions early in the pandemic.
The jury’s verdicts against Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were read in the federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the case presided over by US District Judge Robert Jonker.
Jurors said they could not agree on verdicts again Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. Prosecutors described Fox as a ringleader of an anti-government group.
Fox, Croft and Harris faced additional charges. The two most serious charges, kidnapping conspiracy and conspiracy to use explosives, both carry potential life sentences.
Defence attorneys portrayed their clients as credulous weekend warriors prone to big, wild talk, who were often stoned. They said FBI undercover agents and informants tricked and cajoled the men into agreeing to a conspiracy.
To counter that entrapment claim, prosecutors entered evidence that the men discussed abducting Ms Whitmer before the FBI sting began. They went way beyond talk, including scouting Ms Whitmer’s summer home and testing explosives, prosecutors told jurors.
Croft is from Delaware while the others are from Michigan.
Earlier on Friday, US District Judge Robert Jonker acknowledged the struggle of deliberations. Decisions to convict or acquit must be unanimous.
“I know it’s tough. We all know it’s tough,” Mr Jonker told the jury.
“It’s important to reach unanimity if you can. If you just can’t see it, then that’s what we need to hear eventually as your final answer,” Mr Jonker said.
Deliberations resumed earlier on Friday with a court employee handing over a large plastic bag containing pennies, known as exhibit 291. The pennies were requested before jurors went home on Thursday.
Pennies taped to a commercial-grade firework were intended to act like shrapnel, investigators said.
According to evidence, a homemade explosive was detonated during training in September 2020, about a month before the men were arrested.
In his closing argument on April 1, Assistant US Attorney Nils Kessler said Croft wanted to test the explosive as a possible weapon to use against Ms Whitmer’s security team.
He quoted him as saying the pennies would be so hot they could go “right through your skin”.
Prosecutors offered testimony from undercover agents, a crucial informant and two men who pleaded guilty to the plot. Jurors also read and heard secretly recorded conversations, violent social media posts and chat messages.
Prosecutors said the group was steeped in anti-government extremism and angry over Whitmer’s Covid-19 restrictions.
Ms Whitmer, a Democrat, rarely talks publicly about the plot, though she referred to “surprises” during her term that seemed like “something out of fiction” when she filed for re-election on March 17.
She has blamed former president Donald Trump for fomenting anger over coronavirus restrictions and refusing to condemn right-wing extremists like those charged in the case.
