https://www.mlive.com/news/2019/01/...CYNNUKmn_luJLW2e4-nZRu0FzYGlNXJJ7fS3B3iPvKnrYLess than a month after sentencing, the convicted ringleader of an online child porn ring was beaten to death behind bars, federal prison officials say.
Christian Maire, 40, died of injuries he suffered during a fight involving seven inmates on Jan. 2 in Milan’s federal prison, which is located about 15 miles south of Ann Arbor.
Additionally, three inmates and two guards were treated for non-fatal injuries suffered in the altercation.
U.S. District Judge Stephen J. Murphy III, per a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, sentenced Maire to 40 years in prison on Dec. 7, although he’d been detained in the Milan prison since May 29, while he awaited resolution of his case.
Maire led a group of seven men located throughout the U.S. and Canada, who preyed on vulnerable underage girls from behind computer screens, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin M. Mulcahy said in a sentencing memorandum filed in Maire’s criminal case.
Investigators dubbed the group of men the “Bored Group,” because the aliases they used in online chat rooms, for unknown reasons, often contained the word “bored."
The group of men used lies, manipulation and fake profiles -- usually posing as teenage boys -- to lure girls as young as 10 into private online video chat rooms, where the girls would be asked to strip, masturbate or commit other sex acts on camera, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The videos were then distributed to members of the group.
“They hunted" and “lied” to more than 100 victims between 2012 and 2017, Mulcahy wrote in the sentencing memorandum, in which the government originally requested a life prison sentence for Maire.
All identified participants in the ring have been convicted and sentenced to federal prison.
Maire, a married father of two from Port Dickinson, New York, worked in high-tech computer businesses and graduated from the University of Southhampton in England, according to the Binghampton Press & Sun Bulletin.
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