DETROIT — A Waterford Township man admitted Wednesday that he plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and said federal investigators and informants did not entrap him or his co-conspirators.
The admission and guilty plea by Kaleb Franks in federal court in Grand Rapids gives prosecutors a second key insider who is expected to testify next month at the trial of four other men accused of plotting to kidnap Whitmer. The case has shed light on violent extremism in Michigan motivated by anger over restrictions the Democratic governor imposed during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In pleading guilty to kidnapping conspiracy, a felony punishable by up to life in federal prison, Franks, 27, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Phillip Green that the group conceived of the plot. That admission is designed to combat an expected entrapment defense by lawyers who have raised questions about the conduct of FBI agents and informants.
