New Jersey Man Paid Fake Hitman $20,000 in Bitcoin to Kill 14-Year-Old Boy, Prosecutors Say

By Marlene Lenthang -

A New Jersey man is facing up to 10 years in prison after he hired a hit man and paid $20,000 in Bitcoin to kill a 14-year-old boy, according to the prosecutors who charged him.

John Michael Musbach, 31, of Haddonfield, pleaded guilty in Camden federal court Thursday to one count of using and intentionally causing another person to use the Internet to commit murder, the District Attorney's Office said in a statement. Federal for the District of New Jersey.

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Musbach is accused of exchanging sexually explicit photos and videos with the victim, who in the summer of 2015 was 13 and living in New York, prosecutors said.

The victim's parents found out about the inappropriate exchange and contacted the police.

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Musbach was identified and arrested in March 2016 on child pornography charges.

Police also executed a search warrant at his residence at the time, in Galloway, New Jersey.

Prosecutors said Musbach had decided to kill the victim so the minor could not testify against him in the pending criminal case.

From May 7 to May 20, 2016, he “repeatedly communicated with the administrator of a murder-for-hire website” on the dark web, which offered contract killings in exchange for payment of cryptocurrency.

On that website, Musbach arranged the murder-for-hire, according to the indictment.

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"Musbach asked if a 14-year-old boy was too young to target, and upon hearing that age was not an issue, he paid approximately 40 bitcoins (approximately $20,000 at the time) for the hit," the statement said.

Then, he "repeatedly" sent messages to the site's administrator to follow up on his assignment and ask when the hit would occur.

When the trustee pressed for an additional $5,000 to insure the murder, Musbach tried to cancel the transaction and demanded a refund of the $20,000 from him.

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The page's administrator then revealed that the site was a scam and threatened Musbach with exposing the compromising information to the police.

Musbach faces a potential maximum penalty of a decade in prison and a fine greater than $250,000, "twice Musbach's gross earnings or twice his crime victim's gross losses," the court documents state.

His sentencing is scheduled for June 13.

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Rocco C. Cipparone Jr, an attorney for Musbach, said in a statement that “Mr.

Musbach decided to put this matter behind him and accepted responsibility for it without a trial."

"The sentencing range negotiated in this plea agreement appropriately limits the exposure of Mr. Musbach, for reasons that will be set forth at sentencing. We now look forward to providing context during sentencing, as well as detailed mitigating information and positive information about Mr. Musbach,” the attorney said.