Baron Cain Martin

Baron Cain Martin, known online as "Convict," is a 21-year-old resident of Tucson, Arizona who was indicted by a federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on 29 counts in October 2025, making him the first person in the United States to face a federal terrorism charge as an alleged member of the 764 network. Martin has been in federal custody since his arrest on December 11, 2024, and the indictment was unsealed on October 31, 2025.¹

Background and Role in 764

According to prosecutors, Martin joined 764 in approximately 2019, when he was around 14 or 15 years old, and over the following years rose to a position of leadership and administration within the network's chatrooms. By the time of his arrest he was operating as an administrator of 764 spaces and had authored a detailed grooming guide that he posted online, advising other 764 members on how to identify, groom, and extort vulnerable juveniles. The guide specifically recommended targeting victims who were already struggling with mental health issues, on the ground that psychological vulnerability made targets easier to coerce.¹

Martin operated across Discord, Telegram, and other platforms under the "Convict" alias and additional handles. Named co-conspirators in the indictment include Leonidas Varagiannis, Prasan Nepal, and Tony Christopher Long, all separately prosecuted in federal cases arising from the same investigative period.

Case Record

The case is docketed as United States v. Martin, 4:25-cr-00190-TUC-AMM(BGM), before U.S. District Judge Angela M. Martinez, with Bruce G. Macdonald serving as the assigned magistrate.² The original arrest charges were filed under magistrate case 4:24-mj-11950 following Martin's arrest on December 11, 2024. A superseding grand jury indictment on 29 counts was returned and unsealed on October 31, 2025; Martin was arraigned on the superseding indictment on November 21, 2025 and entered a not-guilty plea on all counts.

The case was designated complex by the court. An original trial date of March 24, 2026 was vacated; a status conference before Magistrate Macdonald was scheduled for May 19, 2026. The current jury trial date is June 30, 2026, with a plea deadline of June 19, 2026.³

The prosecution is led by Justin Sher, Trial Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section, and James Donnelly, who serves as DOJ's designated domestic terrorism coordinator for Nihilistic Violent Extremism cases. The indictment was filed by Timothy Courchaine, U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, who was appointed to that position by Attorney General Pamela Bondi on February 28, 2025.¹

Charges

The 29-count superseding indictment charges Martin with:

• Participating in a child exploitation enterprise
• Conspiring to provide material support to terrorists (18 U.S.C. § 2339A)
• Conspiring to kill, kidnap, or maim persons in a foreign country (18 U.S.C. § 956(a))
• Producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), five counts
• Distributing CSAM, eleven counts
• Coercing and enticing minors to engage in sexual activity, three counts
• Cyberstalking, three counts
• Animal crushing and distribution of animal crush videos
• Conspiracy to commit wire fraud

The material support to terrorism charge rests in part on a September 2022 alleged conspiracy in which Martin directed a victim living outside the United States to self-harm, self-maim, and self-kill. Prosecutors applied the terrorism statute because this coercive violence was intended to further the goals of 764 as a nihilistic violent extremist network.¹

Victims

The superseding indictment alleges that Martin victimized at least nine individuals. Eight of the nine victims were minors at the time the offenses were committed, ranging in age from 11 to 15 years old. The indictment does not name the victims publicly.

First Federal Terrorism Designation

The designation of the material support to terrorism count against Martin represents the first time in the United States that a 764 network member has been charged with a federal terrorism offense. The case was cited by Attorney General Pamela Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel at the time of its announcement as evidence of the government's willingness to apply terrorism statutes to what had previously been charged primarily as child exploitation crimes.¹

DOJ Trial Attorney Justin Sher (National Security Division) and DOJ career officials subsequently offered public assessments of 764 as a terrorism threat equal in seriousness to foreign-directed networks. The Martin case is the legal vehicle through which the DOJ is testing the proposition that 764's violence is terrorism rather than merely criminal exploitation.⁴

The Terrorism Charge: Statutory Theory

The terrorism count in the indictment is a conspiracy charge under 18 U.S.C. § 2339A: conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. This is not a charge under 18 U.S.C. § 2339B (providing material support to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization). The distinction is legally critical: 764 is not a State Department-designated FTO, so 2339B was unavailable.

Section 2339A instead requires only that the defendant knowingly provide material support, defined broadly to include property, services, expert advice or assistance, personnel (including oneself), and training, knowing or intending that the support will be used in preparation for, or to carry out, a listed predicate offense. The predicate offense named in the Martin indictment is a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 956(a): conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons in a foreign country, requiring an overt act within U.S. jurisdiction.⁵

The statutory mechanics: DOJ charged Martin with conspiring to provide material support (under 2339A) in furtherance of a conspiracy to kill or maim an overseas victim (under 956(a)). The two conspiracy layers do not create an impermissible "conspiracy to conspire" problem because 2339A contains its own conspiracy provision, meaning no separate overt act is required once the agreement is formed.⁶

The penalty for the 2339A conspiracy count is up to 15 years per count. The 956(a) conspiracy to kill, if it results in death, carries life imprisonment; conspiracy to maim carries up to 35 years.

Specific Facts Underlying the Terrorism Count

The terrorism count rests on a September 2022 conspiracy in which Martin and unnamed co-conspirators directed a victim identified only as "Victim 7," located outside the United States, to self-harm, self-maim, and die by suicide. The government's theory is that coercing an overseas victim to commit violence against themselves constitutes a conspiracy to kill or maim a person in a foreign country under 956(a), and that Martin's actions in furtherance of that conspiracy, specifically his authorship and circulation of the "Grooming/Manipulation Egirls Guide" and his operational direction of 764 members, constituted "expert advice or assistance" and "services" and "personnel" within the meaning of 2339A.⁵

According to analysis published by researchers at the GWU Program on Extremism, the government will likely rely on overlapping evidence to prove both the 956(a) conspiracy and the 2339A conspiracy, since the same conduct (coercing Victim 7) forms the core of both counts.⁶

U.S. Attorney Courchaine described the ideological component at a press conference: the conduct was not motivated by financial gain but by "the glory and for the ideology of bringing down just generally the system," and that ideological motive, 764's stated accelerationist goal of destabilizing U.S. society and the world order, is what supports the terrorism framing under the statute. He stated: "It's terrorism because it was an ideology that specifically motivated violent actions."⁷

The Grooming Guide as Material Support

The indictment identifies Martin as the author and distributor of the "Grooming/Manipulation Egirls Guide," which provided detailed instructions to 764 members on how to identify, target, and coerce vulnerable minors into producing CSAM and self-harm content. The government classifies the guide's authorship and distribution as both a "service" to 764 members and "expert advice or assistance" within the statutory definition of material support under 2339A. This theory, that a written manual of criminal tradecraft constitutes "expert advice or assistance" under the terrorism material support statute, is a significant extension of how 2339A has traditionally been applied and could face First Amendment challenge if Martin moves to dismiss.⁶

Why Martin and Not Earlier 764 Defendants

The 2339A/956 theory was not applied in earlier 764 prosecutions for a structural reason. The 956(a) predicate requires a conspiracy to kill or maim a person located in a foreign country. Earlier cases, including the founding prosecution of Bradley Chance Cadenhead (Texas state court, CSAM charges only), and the federal prosecutions of Leonidas Varagiannis and Prasan Nepal (D.D.C., case 1:25-cr-00304, child exploitation enterprise and related charges but no terrorism count), either did not involve an identified overseas victim of directed lethal violence, or prosecutors chose not to deploy the terrorism theory at that stage.⁸

The Martin indictment is the first case where DOJ identified a specific overseas victim who was directed to commit lethal self-harm, providing the 956(a) predicate anchor that makes 2339A available without any FTO designation. The Baumgartner/Jonas analysis frames this as DOJ using 2339A as "connective tissue linking online radicalization to real-world harm" and as a signal that the government now views NVE networks as terrorist enterprises rather than merely criminal exploitation schemes.⁶

An additional factor is the explicit accelerationist ideology element. The Chavez prosecution (San Antonio, RICO guilty plea December 2025) and the Varagiannis/Nepal prosecution both used NVE framing in press releases but charged under RICO and child exploitation statutes. Martin's case is distinguished by the combination of: (1) a specifically identified overseas victim, (2) documented ideological goal statements from Martin himself about societal destabilization, and (3) the existence of the grooming guide as a distributable "expert advice" artifact.

Murder-for-Hire Allegation

The indictment also contains a discrete episode from 2022 in which, after becoming involved in a dispute with a 13-year-old girl, Martin allegedly offered to pay $3,000 to have the girl's grandmother killed. He allegedly provided the grandmother's home address and shared both the girl's and her grandmother's phone numbers in a separate Discord chat alongside a solicitation for someone to carry out the attack. This episode is cited in the conspiracy to kill, kidnap or maim persons in a foreign country count and by U.S. Attorney Courchaine as additional support for the terrorism framing, a murder-for-hire offer directed at a family member of a coercion victim, undertaken as network discipline.⁷

Potential Sentence

If convicted, Martin faces a maximum penalty of life in prison on each count of participating in a child exploitation enterprise, conspiracy to kill or maim in a foreign country, and coercion and enticement of a child. He faces 30 years per count for production of CSAM, 15 years for providing material support to terrorists, up to 20 years for cyberstalking resulting in permanent disfigurement or bodily injury, and additional penalties for the remaining counts.¹

FBI Classification and Congressional Oversight

The FBI's internal classification of 764 as a "Tier One" investigative matter, the highest threat category, preceded the Martin terrorism charge and provided the institutional framework within which DOJ National Security Division attorneys were able to bring a terrorism count. FBI Director Kash Patel testified to Congress in September 2025 that 764 represents "the new form of what I refer to as modern-day terrorism in America."⁹

On February 17, 2026, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer and Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement Chairman Clay Higgins sent a formal letter to Patel requesting a classified staff briefing on the FBI's 764 investigations and apprehensions, noting that the Bureau had more than 250 open 764 investigations.¹⁰

Steve Grocki, Chief of DOJ's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, acknowledged the charging challenge in a December 2025 public panel hosted by the GWU Program on Extremism: "Coercing a minor to engage in self-harm or to harm another is not necessarily criminalized in an easy way." The Martin 2339A theory represents DOJ's resolution of that charging gap, sidestepping the absence of a specific federal statute criminalizing directed self-harm by instead treating the coercive campaign as a terrorism conspiracy.⁴

At the same panel, Sher described 764's stated objective as "to cause the downfall of society, cause the downfall of the U.S. government," and Donnelly called the threat "as serious a threat as you can imagine."⁴

Pre-Trial Record

As of May 2026, no defense motions challenging the terrorism count have been reported in public sources or accessible docket summaries. The case was designated complex, which typically signals that both parties anticipate substantial pre-trial litigation. Any motion to dismiss or constitutional challenge to the terrorism charge would likely target either (a) the First Amendment implications of treating the grooming guide as "expert advice or assistance" under 2339A, or (b) whether directing a victim to harm herself satisfies the "kill, kidnap, or maim" element of 956(a) when the perpetrator is directing self-inflicted harm rather than acting directly. The PACER docket (4:25-cr-00190) should be checked closer to the June 30, 2026 trial date for any newly filed motions.³

Martin has been held in federal pretrial detention since his initial arrest on December 11, 2024.

International Parallel Proceedings

The Martin prosecution is occurring alongside a wave of international cases against 764 and Com network members in which the question of terrorism prosecution is being actively contested in multiple jurisdictions.

In the Netherlands, the founder of No Lives Matter, identified only as Justin B., 25, of Eindhoven, faces charges under Article 140a of the Dutch Criminal Code, membership in a terrorist organization, as well as CSAM, animal crushing, and distribution of violent content charges. The Dutch Openbaar Ministerie (OM) formally classified No Lives Matter as a terrorist organization, making this the first known terrorism prosecution of a Com network member in the EU. Justin B. was held in the high-security terrorist wing of Vught Prison and appeared in the high-security courtroom in Rotterdam in October 2025 at his first public hearing.¹¹

In Germany, Shahriar J., a 21-year-old dual German-Iranian national known by the alias "White Tiger," faces 204 criminal charges in Hamburg state court, including one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder as an indirect perpetrator. Shahriar J. was arrested on June 17, 2025 following an FBI tip on child pornography; police found 85,000 files and more than 600 videos. Prosecutors allege he drove a 13-year-old American boy to suicide in January 2022 via livestream by using a Finnish minor as an intermediary. Trial began in Hamburg on January 9, 2026 with 82 days of hearings scheduled through December 17. Germany is prosecuting under murder and CSAM statutes, not terrorism statutes, making the Hamburg case a direct contrast to the U.S. 2339A approach.¹²

In Canada, the government listed 764 as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code on December 10, 2025, becoming the first country to formally designate the network. The listing criminalizes participation in and support for 764, and freezes all Canadian-held 764 property. Canada had already conducted multiple terrorism prosecutions of Com/764-adjacent individuals: the RCMP arrested an Edmonton-area 15-year-old in May 2025 and again in October 2025 for terrorism offenses linked to the Com/764 network, charging the youth with participation in a terrorist group, facilitating terrorist activity, willful promotion of hatred, uttering threats, and CSAM possession.¹³

Analytical Significance

The 2339A/956 theory, as deployed in the Martin case, resolves what had been the central obstacle to terrorism prosecution of domestic online networks that are not designated FTOs: it requires only an overseas victim, a knowing conspiracy to cause lethal or serious physical harm to that victim, and defendant conduct classifiable as material support. No State Department designation, no ideological alignment with a recognized foreign movement, and no connection to a foreign government or organization is required. The theory travels wherever 764 goes, which is transnational by design.

Tanya Mehra and Menso Hartgers of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), in their October 2025 policy brief "Fury and Void: Legal Pathways to Counter 764," noted the challenge of applying traditional terrorism legal frameworks to 764 given the network's stated nihilism rather than a coherent political ideology, arguing that nihilism as such may not satisfy some national terrorism threshold definitions. The U.S. government's approach sidesteps this problem entirely: by anchoring the 2339A charge to 956(a)'s foreign-country violence predicate, DOJ avoids having to prove ideological terrorism intent under any federal domestic terrorism definition. The act of conspiring to cause lethal harm to an overseas victim is sufficient, regardless of ideology.¹⁴