In news that’s straight outta Oz, Fox Channel 32 News recently reported that a man serving a 40-year sentence for his role in an international ring that created illegal media content featuring underage persons in sex-related scenarios – what’s commonly and incorrectly referred to as “child porn” — recently died following a fight at a Michigan federal detention center.

The man, called Christian Maire, age 40 of Port Dickinson, NY, was pronounced dead following an altercation on January 2. Available details of the incident itself are few, however the death is being treated as an apparent homicide.

According to a statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the fight involved seven inmates at the Milan Federal Correctional Institution, which is located about 50 miles southwest of Detroit. It was also reported that three of the other inmates involved were treated for serious injuries. Two prison staff members had minor injuries.

According to reports from Newsweek, Maire was the head of a group of US-based and Canadian men who lured more than a hundred underage girls — some as young as 10 years old — into private online video chat rooms between 2012 and 2017.

The group of men were known as the “Bored Group” by investigators because their online aliases often contained the word “bored.” Group members would often set up fake profiles on social media and teen dating sites, pretending to be teenage boys. Once Marie et al had targeted girls in front of a webcam, they would manipulate them into stripping and performing sex acts. Newsweek reported that, in some instances, they even convinced the girls to harm themselves with sharp objects. Videos of the interactions were recorded and shared amongst “Bored Group” members.

“It’s a horrible tragedy, and it seems something like this should have been able to be avoided,” Fox Channel 32 News reported Maire’s lawyer Mark Kriger saying – apparently in response to Marie’s death. And though injury to corrections officers and other inmates is unfortunate, I am not sure Kriger has correctly identified the tragedy in this situation.

The other members of the “Bored Group” have all been sentenced to more than 30 years in federal prison. They include: Arthur Simpatico, 47, Jonathan Negroni Rodriguez, 37, Michal Figura, 36, Odell Ortega, 37, Brett Jonathan Sinta, 36, Caleb Young, 38 and Daniel Walton, 34.

Image via the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin.