What to Know
- A New Jersey man who was convicted on child porn charges is accused of paying $20,000 in bitcoin to hire a hitman to murder his 14-year-old victim.
- John Michael Musbach, 31, of Haddonfield, was indicted Wednesday and will be scheduled for an arraignment at a later date.
- Musbach is charged with use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
A New Jersey man who was convicted on child porn charges is accused of paying $20,000 in bitcoin to hire a hitman to murder his 14-year-old victim.
John Michael Musbach, 31, of Haddonfield, was indicted Wednesday and will be scheduled for an arraignment at a later date.
In the summer of 2015, Musbach began communicating with the victim, who was 13 at the time, through an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) website, investigators said. Musbach began requesting and receiving sexually explicit videos and photographs of the victim while sending the teen sexually explicit images of himself as well.
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In September 2015, the teen’s parents discovered Musbach’s messages and notified law enforcement officers in New York, where the victim lived.
Officers then contacted Musbach and told him he was under investigation and to stay away from the teen. Musbach lived in Atlantic County, New Jersey, at the time and the officers reached out to the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office (ACPO) for help with the investigation.
On March 31, 2016, ACPO officers arrested Musbach on child pornography charges and executed a search warrant at his home in Galloway, New Jersey, seizing his cellphone. Musbach admitted to sending sexually explicit images and videos of himself to the teen and receiving sexually explicit photos and videos from the victim as well.
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On Oct. 11, 2017, Musbach pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child by sexual contact and was sentenced on Feb. 9, 2018, to a two-year suspended sentence with parole supervision for life.
In 2019, an informant began providing law enforcement messages between Musbach and a murder-for-hire website on the dark net, according to investigators. The website offered contract killings or other acts of violence in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency.
Officials said the messages revealed that in May 2016, Musbach tried to arrange a murder-for-hire through the website, asking if a 14-year-old was too young to target and then paying approximately 40 bitcoin (around $20,000) for the hit when he learned the age was not a problem.
Musbach allegedly repeatedly messaged the website’s administrator asking when the hit would occur. Officials said Musbach eventually tried to cancel the hit and asked for a refund when he was pressed for an additional $5,000 to secure the hit. The administrator then revealed that the website was a scam and threatened to reveal Musbach’s information to law enforcement, according to investigators.
Investigators said they confirmed Musbach’s identity by linking him to the same screen name he used to communicate with the murder-for-hire website and also by tracing the flow of monies from Musbach’s bank account to the purchase of bitcoin he used to pay for the hit.
Musbach is charged with use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
