Crime

Video: The 'Stupidity Defense' Worked in Whitmer Kidnap Case, Retired Michigan FBI Agent Says

April 14, 2022, 10:00 PM

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Greg Stejskal

Jurors in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnap case seemed to buy the argument that the four defendants weren't very sophisticated or capable of pulling off a complex plot to snuff out the governor, says retired Michigan FBI agent Greg Stejskal.

Rather than the entrapment defense, "it would seem more to me that the stupidity defense was successful," he says in a Deadline Detroit interview. 

Federal jurors in Grand Rapids last Friday acquitted Daniel Harris, 24, of Lake Orion, and Brandon Caserta, 34, of Canton Township, and deadlocked on charges against the two alleged plot leaders -- Adam Fox, 38, of Potterville, Mich., and Barry Croft, 46, of Delaware. The government plans to retry Fox and Croft.

Stejskal, an occasional contributing columnist to Deadline Detroit, is a 31-year veteran of the FBI. He retired in 2006 as head of the Ann Arbor office.

In the interview below he talks about whether the government is embarrassed by the outcome, how prosecutors will prepare for the next trial and Donald Trump's possible contribution to the hostile environment when the men and others were charged in October 2020. 



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