It was four years ago when Christian Maire sobbed in court and begged for mercy for running a child porn ring that targeted vulnerable teenage girls on the internet, manipulated them into performing sex acts online and even convinced some to cut themselves while the predators watched.
One year later, he wound up dead — kicked, stomped, stabbed and thrown down a flight of stairs in the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.
Among the attackers was a convicted bank robber, who this week admitted to his crime, showing no emotion as he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and explained to a federal judge what he did.
Adam Wright, nicknamed “Creeper,” admitted that he kicked and stomped Maire in the head on Jan. 2, 2019.
According to his plea agreement, Wright did this while an inmate nicknamed “Sniper” stabbed Maire with a shank, while also stomping and kicking Maire. After the attack, Wright, “Sniper” and a third inmate threw Maire’s body down a flight of metal stairs, his plea agreement states.
“He has expressed great remorse for what he did,” Wright’s attorney, Jim Thomas, told the Free Press Friday.
Under the terms of his plea deal, Wright faces up to 27 years and three months in prison when he is sentenced in June.
His codefendants, 41-year-old Alex Castro, also known as “Sniper,” 41, and 40-year-old Jason Kechego, nicknamed “J,” were also charged. Their cases are pending.
In court documents, the government has portrayed the three inmates as a violent crew that sent fear into the prison community, alleging that Maire was not their only victim.
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“Defendants brutally murdered another inmate and severely assaulted other inmates and prison staff while in a federal prison,” prosecutors wrote in a Feb. 8 court filing. “Their brazen and violent acts were on display for their fellow inmates to see, causing them to fear possible repercussions of cooperating in any manner with this investigation and prosecution.”
They added: “Castro and Wright shouted out warnings of potential future violence toward other inmates.”
Wright, 41, of Springfield, Illinois, entered his plea Thursday in US District Court in Detroit — the same courthouse that Maire and his cohorts were sentenced in years ago for exploiting vulnerable girls.
For five years, prosecutors said, nine online predators pretending to be teenage boys sexually exploited more than 100 girls nationwide, including an Oakland County girl who helped the FBI bust the scheme in 2017.
At their sentencing hearings, the defendants came face to face with some of their still-traumatized victims, who persuaded a judge to lock the men up for decades for robbing their innocence and trust, and for destroying their childhoods.
“Thinking back to those days causes me to cry myself to sleep, wondering when the monsters will stop haunting me,” one victim told the judge.
The ringleader was Maire, a 40-year-old married father of two from New York who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for running an online porn operation that was dubbed “The Bored Group.”
Prosecutors said the group targeted lonely girls, and even had “trust-building” sessions for girls who were suicidal or revealed that that they were cutting themselves. The group’s victims ranged in age from 10 to 17.
“I’m really so ashamed of myself and all the harm I’ve caused my victims,” Maire told US District Judge Stephen Murphy at his sentencing, sobbing at times. “I never knew I could sink this low … but I am sick. Pornography led me down a very dark road. If I was here as a parent instead of a defendant, I would be devastated.”
Maire had three supporters speak on his behalf, including a priest, a family friend and his father, who apologized to the victims.
As Maire’s supporters asked for leniency, a victim in the courtroom whispered to a friend: “But they asked girls to cut themselves.”
Contact Tresa Baldas: [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Man admits he killed child porn ringleader Christian Maire in prison