A 34-year-old man from New Jersey was sentenced to more than six years in prison for ordering a hitman to kill a 14-year-old who was set to testify against him during a child pornography trial, federal officials announced Wednesday.

According to U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Newark Special Agent in Charge Ricky J. Patel, John Michael Musbach, of Haddonfield, New Jersey, will spend 78 months in prison after having pled guilty to one count of knowingly and intentionally using and causing another to use a facility of interstate and foreign commerce (the internet) with the intention that a murder be committed.

In addition to the prison term, Musbach was sentenced to three years of supervised release and fined $30,000.

The sentence and post-release stipulation, is in connection to a murder-for-hire plot that Musbach was organizing in 2016, according to federal authorities.

According to court documents and statements, in the summer of 2015, Musbach exchanged sexually explicit photographs and videos online with a 13-year-old living in New York. The child's parents eventually found out about the inappropriate contact and contacted police.

Upon identifying Musbach, who at that time lived in Atlantic County, New Jersey, New York law enforcement officers reached out to the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office and in March 2016, officers from the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office arrested Musbach on child pornography charges and executed a search warrant at his residence, court documents showed. Subsequently, according to court documents cited by the federal authorities, Musbach decided to have the child killed to stop them from testifying against him.

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From May 7, 2016, through May 20, 2016, according to federal authorities, Musbach repeatedly communicated with the administrator of a murder-for-hire website on the darknet that apparently offered contract killings or other acts of violence in return for payment in cryptocurrency. Musbach ended up asking if a 14-year-old was too young to target, and upon hearing that age was not a problem, he paid about 40 bitcoin (around $20,000 at the time) for the hit.

Musbach messaged the website’s administrator to follow up and to know when the apparent hit would take place. He was then asked for an additional $5,000, which led to Musbach seeking to cancel the hit and asking for a refund. However, the website’s administrator ended up revealing that the website was a scam and threatened to reveal the information to authorities.

“Musbach’s efforts to silence his victim shows the extreme length child predators will go to avoid paying for their heinous activities,” Patel said. “In this case, we were able to use our investigative authorities and undercover platforms to find Musbach lurking in the dark web where he sought to further harm his victim by funding a murder for hire. We will not stop our efforts to protect children and make these criminals pay. There will be serious consequences for child sexual predators who believe they can get away with their vile actions.”