Man admits attempts to hire hitman to kill a teenager he sent explicit photos

 In the summer of 2015, John Michael Musbach hired a murderer to kill a teenager with whom he had exchanged inappropriate images and videos.

 According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), a New Jersey man who attempted to hire a hitman to kill a teen who he thought would expose his sexual photos and videos could spend up to 10 years in jail they revealed in a statement.

 John Musbach admitted guilt to a charge of murder for hire. On Thursday, he appeared in Camden, New Jersey's District Court where he admitted using a killer for hire website to hire an assassin for the purpose of killing a 14 year old child, he made a $20k payment through Bitcoin.

The victim, who was 13 years old and residing in New York at the time, and Musbach exchanged sexually explicit pictures and videos over the summer of 2015, according to the DOJ.

According to the DOJ, the teen's parents informed the local police after learning about the exchanged media. In March 2016, the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office (ACPO) arrested Musbach, now 31 years old, on suspicion of child pornography and carried out a search warrant at his home, which was then located in Galloway, New Jersey.

  According to the DOJ, Musbach made the decision to have the victim, whose name has not been made public, killed after his arrest so that they could not testify against him in his ongoing Trial.

  The DOJ claimed that Musbach "repeatedly interacted" with the admin of a dark web website that offered to kill or carry out violent actions in exchange for cryptocurrencies throughout the whole month of May 2016.

Musbach also questioned whether a 14-year-old was too young to be the target and, after learning that age was irrelevant, paid about 40 bitcoin which was roughly estimated to be worth $20,000 at the time, for the murder to occur.

But the DOJ claimed that Musbach eventually asked for his hit to be canceled and demanded a refund after being asked for an additional $5,000 to carry out the murder-for-hire scheme.

According to the DOJ, The Administrator of the site then revealed it was a scam and threatened to report to the authorities if he pressed on for the refund.

 

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Rocco C. Cipparone, Musbach's lawyer, said in an interview with The New York Times that his client had "decided to put this matter behind him and accept his responsibility without a trial."

At this stage, I'm relatively constrained in what I can address publicly," he added.

Inquiries from PEOPLE for comment were not immediately returned by Cipparone.