New and shocking details revealed at hearing for Gov. Whitmer kidnap plot

GRAND RAPIDS – Federal prosecutors on Tuesday revealed new and sometimes shocking details of the case they have built against six men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Defense attorneys began their efforts to shoot holes in the government's story, suggesting through questions they directed at an FBI agent that some of the plotting was just talk and that there was no specific kidnapping plan, just a range of ideas being tossed around.

Three bond hearings were held Tuesday and bond was denied for all three defendants — Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, and Brandon Caserta. More bond hearings could be held in federal court in Grand Rapids on Friday.

Five of the six defendants sat with chains around their waists and wrists, sometimes nodding to family members or friends in the courtroom, as assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler showed photos and videos and drew testimony from an FBI special agent.

The sixth federal defendant is still in Delaware, where he was arrested. At a hearing there Tuesday, he agreed to be extradited to Michigan. All six are charged with conspiracy to kidnap and have been held in custody since their Oct. 7 arrests.

Seven other defendants face state charges brought by Attorney General Dana Nessel, including supporting terrorism, gang membership, and possessing a firearm in commission of a felony.

Among the details to emerge Tuesday in testimony from FBI Special Agent Richard Trask, who counts domestic terrorism among his areas of specialty:

• Adam Fox, 37, an accused ringleader who lived in the basement of a Wyoming vacuum shop near Grand Rapids, told FBI agents after his arrest that he planned to take Whitmer out to the middle of Lake Michigan in a small boat, disable the engine, and leave her there.
• In early discussions, before the alleged conspirators focused more exclusively on Whitmer, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who, like Whitmer, is a Democrat, was mentioned as a possible kidnap target. Like Whitmer, Northam was discussed as a possible target because of "lockdowns" he ordered to combat the coronavirus pandemic, Trask testified.
• Fox and others took close-up still photos and videos outside Whitmer's northern Michigan cottage as part of the planning for a plot to kidnap her from there prior to the Nov. 3 election. Prosecutors showed in the courtroom photos of Fox shooting the photos just outside the cottage, in daylight. The photos of Fox were taken by a confidential informant, Kessler told the court.
• By the time the defendants conducted a second surveillance outside the Whitmer cottage — this time at night — they had been so thoroughly infiltrated by the FBI that two undercover FBI agents and two confidential informants were part of the surveillance group.
• During another plotting exercise, sending a fake delivery person to Whitmer's door to shoot her was discussed, according to Trask and exhibits shown in court. Defendant Harris, a 23-year-old former Marine, suggested the conspirators could "just mug the pizza guy and take his shir(t)," adding: "Just take a pistol and like 3 rounds." Kessler said the comments were reminiscent of a recent attack on a federal judge in New Jersey in which the shooter, who killed the judge's son and wounded her husband but left the judge unharmed, was disguised as a FedEx delivery person.
• Defendants took part in training exercises that included use of silencers on guns, exercises in busting down a door and extracting a hostage, and reloading weapons quickly, according to photos, videos and testimony introduced as evidence Tuesday.

Preliminary examinations were begun for all five Michigan defendants Tuesday, and detention hearings were held for three of them.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Berens said that two of the defendants — Fox and Ty Garbin, 24, of Hartland Township, want more time to prepare for their preliminary examinations and detention hearings. Hearings for Fox and Garbin will likely be completed at a later date, most likely on a Friday, she said.

More: Defense says kidnap plot was just 'big talk between crackpots'

Denied bond Tuesday were : 26-year-old Franks of Wexford, Harris of Lake Orion and 32-year-old Caserta of Canton.

Lawyers had asked that all three be released, with conditions including home monitoring and no possession of firearms.

In denying bond for the three men, Berens said she was not too concerned about them trying to flee and not showing up for trial, but she was worried that all three remained a threat to the community.

"There is apparently a movement ... that plots the overflow of the government by force," Berens said in denying bond for Franks. And if the men are released, the plot "has the ability to begin again."

In the case of Harris, the judge noted that, according to an FBI affidavit, he suggested killing Whitmer in an encrypted group chat, stating: "Have one person go to her house. Knock on the door and when she answers it, just cap her."

Harris also allegedly commissioned a hit on a Maine police officer in a text to accomplices that read:  "Who would want to go to Maine to go kill a cop for a friend of mine?"

More:FBI: Virginia governor also targeted in militia kidnapping plot

More:FBI agent: Suspects wanted to take Whitmer out on boat and leave her in Lake Michigan

And although Caserta was the only defendant who participated in neither of two surveillance exercises conducted at Whitmer's cottage in northern Michigan, Berens agreed with Kessler, the federal prosecutor, that various threats he made against police officers were of particular concern.

Caserta was enraged by a Sept. 19 police traffic stop near his home, during which he received a ticket for lacking a proper license or insurance, Kessler told the court.

Using encrypted messages, he later told his coconspirators that he had learned the names of the officers involved, knew they worked nights, and was considering conducting reconnaissance on them. "I could easily tap them," he reportedly said in an apparent reference to killing them.

Still later, Caserta recorded and shared a video, shared in court, in which he said he wanted to take out as many police officers as possible, referring to them as "motherf------s," and "government thugs."

"I'm sick of being robbed and enslaved by the state," Caserta said in the video.

Berens said the video was "very chilling," and "really makes it impossible to require a probation officer to supervise Mr. Caserta, when there is that overt threat to law enforcement officers."

Michael Darragh Hills, Caserta's Kalamazoo attorney, said the threats were rhetorical and never acted on.

Security at the federal courthouse appeared stepped-up but not extreme. A dog trained to detect explosives was led through the courtroom by federal agents in advance of the hearing.

Media located outside the courthouse were not given access to the main entrance, after federal police directed them to a sidewalk neighboring the facility. Police conducted routine sweeps with police dogs several times before the hearings began at 9:30 a.m.

Though chained, the defendants wore casual street clothes to the hearing, not prison garb. Caserta wore a T-shirt reading, "Detroit muscle."

Four of the five defendants wore protective masks throughout most of Tuesday's hearing, though sometimes the masks covered their mouths, but not their noses. Fox did not wear a mask.

The scene outside of the courthouse was calm Tuesday morning as statewide media waited for attorneys and families to exit the building. 

Bystanders passing by were sparse, although some stopped to ask why media members were present. One Grand Rapids man, Pablo Bello, said the men charged were “racist terrorists.”

“It’s nasty how they attack immigrants, these guys,” Bello said of the groups. 

Scott Graham, a Portage attorney representing Franks, said many of the statements attributed to his client, while sensational, could lack substance. It's also clear that Franks was "a follower, not a leader," he said.

"It's clear there is less certainty about many of the statements in the complaint than they appear at first blush," Graham told Berens.

Reporters Carolyn Muyskens and Arpan Lobo of the Holland Sentinel contributed to this report.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.  Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter. 

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