NEW YORK TIMES: The only defendant to plead guilty to taking part in a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was sentenced on Wednesday to six years and three months in prison.
Ty G. Garbin, 25, an airplane mechanic, was the first defendant to be sentenced for what prosecutors have described as an extremist plot driven by anger at the governor’s efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the NYT stated.
The 14 men arrested in October face charges in federal and state courts in one of the most significant domestic terrorism plots ever to come to trial in the United States. The defendants, many of them members of an antigovernment paramilitary group in Michigan called the Wolverine Watchmen, coalesced around protests against Covid-19 lockdown measures.
After initially weighing storming the State Capitol in Lansing, they decided to abduct Governor Whitmer from her vacation home, according to prosecutors. Their efforts were seen as a precursor to the violence unleashed at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., according to NYT.