New Jersey man tried to hire a hitman for $20,000 in Bitcoin to kill a 14-year-old boy planning to testify against him in a child-pornography case

Grace Eliza Goodwin
Updated ·3 min read
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  • A New Jersey man admitted he tried to hire a hitman on the dark web using $20,000 in Bitcoin to kill a boy.

  • John Michael Musbach wanted to stop the 14-year-old from testifying in a child-pornography case, prosecutors allege.

  • The murder-for-hire website turned out to be a scam, according to prosecutors.

A New Jersey man has admitted he tried to hire a hitman for $20,000 in Bitcoin to kill a 14-year-old boy who was going to testify against him in a child-pornography case, according to the Department of Justice.

John Michael Musbach, 31, from Haddonfield, New Jersey, pleaded guilty in federal court to hiring a hitman to carry out a murder, according to a release by the Department of Justice.

Musbach first encountered the boy in the summer of 2015 when the boy was 13 years old and living in New York with his parents, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. The complaint alleges that Musbach and the boy exchanged sexually explicit content with each other online, including videos of themselves masturbating.

The boy's parents found out and alerted the police, who started investigating Musbach, according to the complaint.

Prosecutors alleged in a court filing that police discovered Musbach had Google searched a variety of alarming queries, like "child grooming law," "death by chloroform," "where to buy chloroform," "how to buy a gun in NJ," and finally, searches on how to erase his search history.

In March of 2016, authorities arrested Musbach on child pornography charges, prosecutors said in the complaint.

A few months after being arrested, Musbach then "decided to have the victim killed so that the victim could not testify against him in the pending criminal case," the DOJ said in a statement released Thursday. The criminal complaint states that Musbach found a murder-for-hire website on the dark web and arranged to pay $20,000 worth of Bitcoin for the murder of the victim.

The murder-for-hire service advertised itself on its website, saying "If you want to kill someone, or to beat the shit out of him, we are the right guys ... No undercover cops here. No risks of getting caught, because we are professional killers," according to the complaint.

When Musbach asked if 14 years old was too young for the hit, the site administrator said "14 years old is acceptable," according to the complaint.

After paying up $20,000 in Bitcoin, Musbach then repeatedly messaged the service asking when the hit would be carried out, prosecutors said.

Eventually, the site administrator revealed that the site was a scam and threatened to turn Musbach in to law enforcement if he didn't turn over more money, according to the DOJ.

Musbach allegedly responded, "is this a joke?"

The boy was never harmed, and the site did eventually turn Musbach over to authorities, prosecutors said. Musbach pleaded guilty to the murder-for-hire charges in court on Thursday, according to the DOJ.

Musbach's lawyer, Rocco C. Cipparone, told Insider in a statement, "Mr. Musbach decided to put this matter behind him without a trial, and accepted his responsibility."

Musbach faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in June.

Read the original article on Insider