DETROIT — Jurors in next month's conspiracy case against five men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will be allowed to hear about the criminal records and other prior allegations involving the defendants, a federal judge said Wednesday.
Prosecutors asked permission to divulge the rap sheets and allegations to help establish the defendants' predisposition to kidnapping Whitmer and rebut an anticipated defense strategy that undercover FBI agents and informants entrapped the men.
The order by U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker came amid several pretrial attempts to determine which evidence will be shown to jurors during a trial starting March 8 in federal court in Grand Rapids. The case has focused national attention on violent extremism in Michigan.
Prosecutors won the right Wednesday to tell jurors that Delaware truck driver Barry Croft, one of the group's alleged ringleaders who is described as a bombmaker, was convicted of conspiring to steal cars, burglarize an apartment complex and illegally possess a firearm.
Jurors also will be told about Waterford Township resident Kaleb Franks' conviction for second-degree home invasion, that Lake Orion resident Daniel Harris is accused of making an illegal sawed-off shotgun and that Franks and Harris allegedly conspired to manufacture unregistered "ghost guns."
They are among a group of five men awaiting trial on kidnap conspiracy and other charges. A sixth man, Ty Garbin, 26, of Hartland Township, pleaded guilty and is serving a six-year, federal prison sentence.
Eight others are facing state charges.
Defense lawyers have argued there was no kidnapping conspiracy and that some of the prior convictions were inadmissible. Prosecutors hardly needed to tell jurors about the criminal acts, defense lawyers said, after FBI agents amassed a large volume of evidence during the kidnapping conspiracy investigation.
"But to the contrary, if the defense satisfies its initial burden of putting entrapment in play, the burden will be on the government to demonstrate the defendants’ predisposition," the judge wrote Wednesday. "Criminal history is very much a factor in this calculus."
The prior crimes and bad acts are similar enough to the kidnapping conspiracy allegations, the judge wrote.
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