Judge orders 3 to stand trial in plot to kidnap Michigan governor

A Michigan judge on Monday ordered three men to stand trial in a plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic housekeeper Gretchen Whitmer over her coronavirus restrictions.

Jackson County District Court Judge Michael Klaeren ruled there was enough evidence and tied Paul Bellar, Joe Morrison and Pete Musico to the circuit court to stand trial.

“The defendants are joined at the hip here,” Klaeren said before announcing his decision. “The prosecution did a good job of establishing who knew what and when.”

Arguments were heard by Klaeren on Monday after the first three days of testimony.

The three men are accused of aiding six other people indicted in federal court with conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer. Five other people are also indicted in state courts.

The FBI said in October it had broken a plot to kidnap Whitmer by anti-government extremists upset by its restrictions on coronaviruses.

Klareen said there was enough evidence to stand trial on charges of material support for terrorist acts, gang membership and use of a gun in a felony. Klaeren has dismissed a terrorism threat charge against Musico and Morrison. Bellar did not face this charge.

The threat of terrorism, providing material support for terrorist acts and accusations of gang membership, are 20-year crimes. Charges relating to firearms carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.

According to a court affidavit, Musico and Morrison are founding members of the Wolverine Watchmen, which authorities refer to as “an anti-government and anti-law enforcement militia.”

The Watchmen have gathered periodically for guns and tactical training in remote areas “to prepare for ‘boogaloo,’ a term referring to a violent uprising against the government or an imminent politically motivated civil war.” det. Sgt. Michael Fink wrote in an affidavit.

Klaeren said Monday that Bellar, Musico and Morrison “individually and collectively wanted to precipitate the violence associated with ‘boogaloo’.”

“From pretty much day one it’s pretty clear that the number of Wolverine Watchmen believed in ‘boogaloo’, believed in Civil War, believed it was coming,” the judge said.

Bellar’s attorney, Andrew Kirkpatrick, argued in Monday’s hearing that last year’s protests in cities across the United States against police brutality may have prompted Bellar to attend training for the ‘a “potential civil war”.

“He got into this because 2020 hasn’t been like the others,” Kirkpatrick said. “People were worried. They were concerned about what might happen in their hometown. There was training.

About a dozen men facing federal and state charges were among the armed protesters who entered the Michigan Senate gallery on April 30 following a larger protest outside the Capitol against the stay order. at Whitmer’s house.

Following the kidnapping plot arrests, Whitmer said then-President Donald Trump’s rhetoric had been a “rallying cry” for extremists.

She said the Republican president spent months during the coronavirus pandemic “denying the science, ignoring his own health experts, stoking mistrust, stirring up anger and comforting those who spread fear, hatred and division “.

At the time, Trump said Whitmer had done a “terrible job” and should lift restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the virus.