A former Galloway Township resident who admitted in he paid $20,000 in bitcoin to have a 14-year-old child killed so the boy couldn’t testify against him in a child pornography case was sentenced to federal prison Tuesday.
John Michael Musbach, now 34 and living in Haddonfield, first began exchanging sexually explicit photographs with the then-13-year-old New York boy, in the summer of 2015.
The victim’s parents notified police when they found out about the inappropriate contact.
He then decided to pay for the boy to be killed so that the victim could not testify against him.
Musbach pleaded guilty in February.
He was sentenced to 78 months in prison.
Musbach communicated with the administrator of a murder-for-hire website from May 7 through May 20, 2016, to set up the killing.
After he was told the victim's age was not an issue, Musbach paid about 40 bitcoin — around $20,000 at the time — for the hit.
Musbach then repeatedly messaged the website’s administrator to follow up on the killing.
On May 19, the administrator messaged Musbach saying that there was a problem: “The assigned hitman got arrested for cocaine possession while he was near the place.”
He was then told the new hitman wanted an additional $5,000.
That’s when Musbach tried to cancel the hit and get a refund, according to the charges.
Instead, the website’s administrator told Musbach the site was a scam and threatened to tell law enforcement.
Agents were able to confirm Musbach’s identity through several means, including linking him to the same screen name he used to communicate with the murder-for-hire website and also by tracing the flow of money from Musbach’s bank account to the purchase of bitcoin used to pay for the hit.
In addition to the prison term, Musbach must serve three years of supervised release. He was also fined $30,000.
