A Delaware trucker described as a co-leader of the conspiracy to kidnap Michigan’s governor has been sentenced to more than 19 years in prison.

Barry Croft Jr was the fourth and final federal defendant to learn his fate, a day after ally Adam Fox was sentenced to 16 years in prison. The two men were convicted in August of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids.

They were accused of running a stunning plot to abduct Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation home just before the 2020 presidential election. 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 was not physically harmed. The FBI was secretly embedded in the group and made 14 arrests.

Fox, 39, and Croft, 47, were convicted of two counts of conspiracy at a second trial in August. Croft also was found guilty of possessing an unregistered explosive. A different jury in Grand Rapids, Michigan, could not reach a verdict on the pair at the first trial last spring but acquitted two other men.

“The abduction of the governor was only meant to be the beginning of Croft’s reign of terror,” assistant US attorney NilsKessler said. “He called for riots, ‘torching’ government officials in their sleep and setting off a ‘domino’ effect of violence across the country.”

A key piece of evidence: Croft, Fox and others traveled to see Whitmer’s vacation home in northern Michigan with undercover agents and informants inside the cabal.

At one point, Croft told allies: “I don’t like seeing anybody get killed either. But you don’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, you know what I mean?”

Croft’s attorney tried to soften his client’s role. In a court filing, Joshua Blanchard said the Bear, Delaware, man did not actually have authority over others and often frustrated them because he “just kept talking”.

Croft was smoking 2 ounces (56g) of marijuana a week, Blanchard said.

“Simply put, to the extent that the jury determined he was a participant, as they necessarily did, he was a participant to a lesser degree than others,” Blanchard insisted.

Two men who pleaded guilty and testified against Fox and Croft received substantial breaks: Ty Garbin already is free after a 2.5-year prison term, while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.

In state court, three men recently were given lengthy sentences for assisting Fox earlier in the summer of 2020. Five more are awaiting trial in Antrim county, where Whitmer’s vacation home is located.

When the plot was extinguished, Whitmer blamed then-President Donald Trump, saying he had given “comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division”. In August, 19 months after leaving office, Trump said the kidnapping plan was a “fake deal”.