Haddonfield Man Indicted In Assassination Plot Aimed At Teen: FBI

HADDONFIELD, NJ — A Haddonfield man has been indicted on charges he paid $20,000 in bitcoin to have a 14-year-old child he is accused of sexually assaulting murdered, authorities announced on Wednesday.

John Michael Musbach, 31, was charged by indictment with one count of murder-for-hire and will be scheduled for an arraignment at a later date, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced.

He was previously charged by complaint with one count of murder-for-hire in August. Read more here: Haddonfield Man Tried To Have 14-Year-Old Killed For $20K: FBI

Musbach was arrested on child pornography charges in March 2016, according to authorities. Two months after his arrest, he began communicating with a murder-for-hire website on the dark web, according to authorities.

He asked if a 14-year-old was too young to be targeted for a killing, according to authorities. After being told it wasn't, he arranged for the child to be killed for 40 Bitcoin, which is worth about $20,000, authorities said. He also followed up with the website's administrator to find out when the killing would take place, authorities said.

At the time, Musbach lived in Galloway. He was arrested by officers from the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office on March 31, 2016, on charges of child pornography. Officers seized his cell phone and business laptop during the execution of a search warrant at his home.

Musbach admitted to having sent sexually explicit images and videos of himself to the victim and having requested and received sexually explicit images and videos from the victim, all while knowing that the victim was 13 years old, Carpnenito said.

In 2017, he pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child by sexual contact and was given a two-year suspended sentence with parole supervision for life.

In 2019, a cooperating informant began providing information to agents from Homeland Security Investigations in St. Paul, Minnesota, authorities said. This included information about Musbach's attempts to have the child killed.

By then, the original communication had been scraped from the website, but the informant had original copies, authorities said.

Agents were able to confirm Musbach's identity and link him to the screen name used in the alleged murder-for-hire scheme, authorities said. They were also able to trace the flow of money from Musbach's account used in the scheme.

Musbach faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of the greater of $250,000, twice the gross profits to Musbach or twice the gross losses to the victim of his offense.