77 years, count by count: the 764 sentence and coercion as a recruitment model

The maximum on each of four counts, ordered served consecutively, is where 77 comes from: two counts of producing child sexual abuse material, one of possession, one of distributing animal crush videos, sentenced in the Eastern District of Tennessee ^[3]. Not one of those counts is a terrorism offence. The terrorist motive sits in the plea agreement ^[4]. So the figure is really a count of separately chargeable artefacts the conduct generated.

That is the part worth sitting with, because the victims generated them. Under threats of doxing and swatting, CyberScoop reports, they filmed themselves, cut themselves, wrote his online moniker in their own blood, and decapitated dogs, rabbits and chickens on camera ^[5][6]. His phone, seized in February 2024, held about 25 albums titled with first names or nicknames ^[7]. That is a caseload, organised per person.

Each coerced act does two jobs: it is material the network trades, and it is the reason the person who made it cannot walk away. The pipeline runs past compliance, too. CyberScoop reports that Alexis Aldair Chavez began associating with 764 as a child in 2022, went on to lead the offshoot 8884, and was sentenced last month to 40 years for blackmailing girls into self-harm and animal torture ^[10]. The cohorts line up. FBI Boston puts typical victims at 10 to 17 years old ^[12]; the networks are described as thousands of people typically aged 11 to 25 ^[11]. The overlap covers most of the victim age band ^[20].

Spitze's term is roughly 1.9 times Chavez's ^[17]. Allison Nixon of Unit 221B, quoted by CyberScoop, said she wished other countries would accept that these people do not rehabilitate and set sentences accordingly ^[18]. Incapacitation here is priced per administrator. The supply he was drawing on is still online.