John Michael Musbach, Murder-for-Hire, New Jersey 2024

John Michael Musbach, a 31-year-old Haddonfield, New Jersey man already convicted in a child pornography case, is now facing federal murder-for-hire charges after allegedly paying $20,000 in Bitcoin to have his 13-year-old victim killed. The plot unfolded on the dark net, where Musbach sought to erase the evidence of his earlier crimes by silencing the victim permanently, federal prosecutors revealed today.

Musbach’s descent into criminal escalation began in the summer of 2015, when he initiated contact with the minor through an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) website. Over time, the conversations turned predatory: Musbach requested and received sexually explicit videos and photos of the 13-year-old, while also sending explicit material of himself. The abuse came to light in September 2015, when the victim’s parents in New York discovered the correspondence and alerted local authorities.

After being confronted by law enforcement and warned to stay away from the victim, Musbach was arrested on March 31, 2016, by the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office (ACPO) on child pornography charges. During a search of his then-residence in Galloway, New Jersey, investigators seized his cell phone and a company-issued laptop. Musbach admitted to exchanging explicit content with the minor, knowing full well the child’s age. In October 2017, he pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child by sexual contact and received a two-year suspended sentence with lifetime parole supervision.

But Musbach’s criminal reckoning didn’t end there. In 2019, a cooperating informant handed over messages between Musbach and a dark net murder-for-hire website. The messages showed that in May 2016—just months after his arrest—Musbach inquired whether a 14-year-old was too young a target. Receiving assurance it wasn’t, he paid approximately 40 Bitcoin, then valued at $20,000, to have the victim killed. He followed up repeatedly, pressing the site’s administrator for updates on the hit.

When the operator demanded an additional $5,000, Musbach backed out and requested a refund. That’s when the scam unraveled: the website administrator told Musbach the service was fake and threatened to expose his attempted contract killing to law enforcement. Federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations in St. Paul, Minnesota, confirmed Musbach’s identity by matching his screen name and tracing Bitcoin transactions from his bank account to the illicit payment.

Now charged with one count of murder-for-hire under federal law, Musbach faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000—or double the gross profits or losses tied to the crime, whichever is greater. He is scheduled to appear via videoconference before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen M. Williams this afternoon. U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito emphasized that justice would not be outsourced in the shadows: ‘The dark web is not a law-free zone,’ he said. ‘We will track you down, expose you, and prosecute you to the full extent of the law.’

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