A New Jersey man who exchanged sexually explicit videos and images with a 13-year-old New York girl has admitted paying $20,000 in bitcoin to have the child victim murdered before finally calling it off.
John Michael Musbach, 31, of Haddonfield, pleaded guilty Thursday to using facilities of interstate commerce in the commission of a murder-for-hire plot, according to federal prosecutors. He now faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced on June 13.
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Musbach began communicating with the victim online in the summer of 2015. Musbach eventually began using those chat rooms to request and receive sexually explicit videos and photos of the girl and to send her similar videos and images of himself, but the parents of the girl girl discovered the nature of the chats and notified local law enforcement officers in upstate New York, where they lived.
A New Jersey man pleaded guilty Thursday to the planned murder-for-hire of a 13-year-old girl from whom he solicited explicit images and videos.
He was arrested on child pornography charges in March 2016 and eventually pleaded guilty to child endangerment in October 2017. He received a two-year suspended prison sentence and was placed on life probation.
In May 2016, Musbach began contacting the administrator of a dark web murder-for-hire site while his criminal case was pending, authorities said. After asking if the girl was too young to attack and that age was not an issue, prosecutors said Musbach paid approximately $20,000 in bitcoin for the hit.
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When pressed for an additional $5,000 to secure the hit, Musbach eventually tried to call off, asking for a refund of his $20,000. The website administrator later revealed that the site was a scam and threatened to release Musbach’s information to the police.
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Federal prosecutors did not specify Thursday how the plot was discovered. But during his 2020 indictment, prosecutors said an informant gave the Department of Homeland Security messages between Musbach and the bogus hit man website.
