Whitmer kidnapping trial collapses: Two not guilty, two walk free after mistrial

A jury acquitted two defendants in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping trial on Friday but was unable to come to a verdict on the alleged ringleaders of the plot.

The not guilty verdicts are a serious blow to the FBI, which had been accused by defense attorneys of having “conceived and controlled every aspect” of the kidnapping plot through the more than a dozen confidential informants it embedded into the defendants’ group in the summer of 2020.

The jury announced Friday afternoon that it had ruled unanimously to find Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta not guilty on charges of conspiring to kidnap the Democratic Michigan governor in 2020. Harris was also acquitted of charges related to explosives and firearms.

Cries of relief were reportedly heard in the courtroom as the jury read Caserta’s verdict.

GRETCHEN WHITMER KIDNAPPING: CRACKS FORMING IN FEDERAL CASE

“Best birthday gift ever,” Caserta said in the courtroom after the verdict was read.

Caserta and Harris will be freed from jail following the verdict after spending nearly two years behind bars, the Detroit News reported.

Jurors also announced they were unable to reach a unanimous decision on the charges against the alleged ringleaders of the plot, Adam Fox and Barry Croft. Judge Robert Jonker declared a mistrial in those cases.

The jury’s decision to find two defendants not guilty in the kidnapping conspiracy and its failure to reach a unanimous decision for Fox and Croft will likely renew questions about whether the defendants, who were members of the Three Percenters and Wolverine Watchmen militia groups, were entrapped by undercover FBI informants embedded into their group.

Defense attorneys argued during the trial that their clients were high all the time when the plot was allegedly hatched during the summer of 2020 and that they never would never have conspired to kidnap Whitmer in the first place if government informants embedded in the group hadn’t pushed them to do so.

At least a dozen confidential government informants had infiltrated the defendants’ militia groups during the investigation into the kidnapping plot.

“This is not the outcome we wanted,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge said outside the courthouse after the verdict was read.

The government’s two star witnesses, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, had pleaded guilty to their involvement in the kidnapping plot before the trial. Both testified during the trial that the plot to kidnap Whitmer originated from the defendants, not undercover FBI agents.

But defense attorneys challenged their testimony, saying they lied on the stand to avoid long prison sentences.

“I think we tried to make it very clear that the snitches Garbin and Franks were inconsistent,” Caserta’s attorney, Mike Hills, told reporters last Friday. “They were actually lying — it was more than inconsistent. They were lying, and they were doing so for time, which is the most precious thing you can have. I’m hoping it impacted the jury.”

The FBI weathered a string of embarrassing stories relating to the conduct of its agents and informants during the kidnapping investigation, much of which Junker had barred from being discussed during the trial.

FBI Special Agent Jayson Chambers, who served as a handler for the informant known as “Big Dan” during the investigation, owned a private security company that allegedly tried to parlay his FBI experience into multimillion-dollar contracts.

Defense attorneys alleged in the months leading up to the trial that Chambers pushed his confidential informants to entrap the defendants in order to secure contracts for his firm, Exeintel.

Jonker had also prohibited the defense from citing allegations against a second FBI handler in the case, Henrik Impola, who was accused of committing perjury on the witness stand in an unrelated case.

The defendants were also prohibited from citing some of their own out-of-court statements that were captured in audio recordings and text messages that they intended to use to show they never intended to kidnap Whitmer. Jonker said the statements “qualify as hearsay … when offered to support the defense theory.”

The defense was also unable to secure testimony from a key FBI informant involved in the investigation that prosecutors characterized before the trial as a “double agent” for not following FBI instructions.

The informant, Stephen Robeson, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called to the stand last week.

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While Robeson served as an informant, the FBI said before the trial, he violated his agreement to avoid committing “unsanctioned crimes.” Specifically, prosecutors said Robeson used a charity under his control to purchase weapons and offered his drone to plotters to aid in acts of domestic terrorism. Prosecutors added that Robeson failed to record “pertinent conversations and events” during the investigation.