









The ringleader of an international child pornography ring—who was sentenced to 40 years in prison just last month—died after a fight with seven inmates on January 2 at a Michigan federal detention center.

A statement Friday from the Federal Bureau of Prisons says Christian Maire had life-threatening injuries following the “altercation” Tuesday at the Milan detention center about 50 miles southwest of Detroit and was pronounced dead.

Maire, who was married with two children—received a 40 year sentence on December 7, but he had been detained at Milan since May 29, Michigan Live reported.

Prosecutors described how Maire was at the head of a group of seven American and Canadian men who lured more than a hundred vulnerable underage girls—some as young as 10 years old—into private online video chat rooms between 2012 and 2017.

Once they had the girls in front of a webcam, the men would manipulate them into stripping and performing sex acts on camera. In some instances, they even convinced the girls into cutting themselves with sharp objects, according to court documents. Videos of the chats were recorded and shared among the members.

The men—who were known as the “Bored Group” by investigators because their online aliases often contained the word “bored”— The men pretended to be teenage boys using fake profiles and stolen pictures then scoured popular social media sites looking for targets. Their hunting grounds included Gifyo, Periscope, YouNow, and MyLOL.com, which describes itself as “the No. 1 teen dating site in the U.S., Australia, U.K. and Canada.”

The other men convicted in the ring:

Arthur Simpatico, 47, of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. He was sentenced to 38 years.

Jonathan Negroni Rodriguez, 37, of West Hollywood, California, was sentenced to 35 years.

Michal Figura, 36, of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 31¼ years.

Odell Ortega, 37, of Miami, was sentenced to 37½ years.

Brett Jonathan Sinta, 36, of Hickory, North Carolina, was sentenced to 30½ years.

Caleb Young, 38, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, was sentenced to 30 years.

Daniel Walton, 34 Saginaw, Texas, was sentenced to 30½ years.

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