Milan Correctional Institution
Christian Maire
A serial bank robber at the Milan federal prison, outside Ann Arbor, pleaded guilty Thursday in the 2019 murder of a fellow inmate who authorities said masterminded an international child porn production ring.
Adam Taylor Wright, 41, formerly of Springfield, Ill., pleaded to second-degree murder in Detroit federal court in the killing of Christian Maire, sentenced in 2018 to 40 years in prison for his part in the child porn ring. Seven others from around the country were also sentenced for being part of that group.
Court records allege that on Jan. 2, 2019, Wright and fellow inmates Alex Albert Castro, 41, and Jason Dale Kechego, 40, killed Maire, 40.
Authorities charged that Wright and Kechego repeatedly kicked and stomped Maire in the head, and Wright prevented him from fleeing while Castro repeatedly stabbed him. The trio then threw Maire’s body down a flight of metal stairs.
The plea agreement calls for a sentence of more than 27 years. It can be served concurrently, partially concurrently or consecutively to the 199-month sentence he was serving in three other cases. Sentencing is set for June 14.
Charges against Castro and Kechego are pending.
“When a murder happens within a prison, it undermines the safety and security of our penal institutions as well as the inmates and Bureau of Prisons employees who work there,” U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison said.
According to government court records, Maire and seven other men worked together from 2012-17, along with others both inside and outside the United States.
Milan Correctional Institution
The men recruited victims from social media by pretending to be teenage boys interested in chatting with the girls in real time. Once the victims arrived in the chatrooms, the group—all pretending to be teenagers—worked together to build trust and convince the children to engage in sexually explicit conduct on web cameras, federal authorities said.
Group members then recorded the activity, unbeknownst to the victims.
In October 2017, a federal search warrant was executed at Maire's home in Binghamton, N.Y., while his wife and two children were home.
The porn group successfully targeted hundreds of minors, some as young as 10, authorities said in a 2018 statement in the case. A forensic examination of their devices recovered more than 450,000 exploitive and pornography videos.
At the time of sentencing, the FBI had had identified only a few dozen victims in the United States, with one under 18 from Southeast Michigan.
A 2018 government sentencing memorandum named Maire as the mastermind of the organization known as the Bored Group, saying he is "the person most culpable for the group’s conduct."
“These predators committed truly horrific crimes against innocent girls and they deserve decades in prison," then-Detroit U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said after sentencing.
