DETROIT (AP) — A state appeals court on Monday set aside convictions for two men involved in a 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Pete Musico and Paul Bellar were convicted of providing material support for an act of terrorism. They, along with co-defendant Joe Morrison, were accused of having secondary roles in the scheme.
Morrison’s conviction was thrown out in June in a precedent-setting decision. A different panel at the Michigan Court of Appeals said it was obligated to apply that ruling to Musico and Bellar as well.
The convictions were overturned on technical grounds. The appeals court said kidnapping is not an underlying violent felony that can support a conviction under Michigan’s terrorism law.
Attorney General Dana Nessel called it “linguistic gymnastics” and said she would ask the Michigan Supreme Court to take up the cases.
Morrison, Musico and Bellar were not charged with having a direct role in the plot to kidnap Whitmer. Bellar had moved out of state weeks before the FBI made arrests in October 2020, and Morrison and Musico said they, too, were no longer in contact with key figures.
But they had been members of a paramilitary group that earlier trained with Adam Fox, who was prosecuted in federal court as a leader and is serving a 16-year prison sentence for conspiracy.
As part of the plot, Whitmer was supposed to be kidnapped her from her vacation home just before the 2020 presidential election. Prosecutors said the conspirators were furious over tough COVID-19 restrictions that Whitmer and officials in other states had put in place during the early months of the pandemic, as well as perceived threats to gun ownership.
Whitmer, a Democrat, was never physically harmed. Undercover FBI agents and informants were inside Fox’s group for months, and the scheme was broken up.
The overall investigation, however, produced mixed results for state and federal prosecutors. Five of the 14 men were acquitted at trials.