A Microsoft employee was sentenced to 7-years in prison for using the dark web to hire contract killers to target the birth parents of children he had adopted.
Christopher Pence, 43, of Cedar City, Utah previously pleaded guilty to the plot to kill the New York couple.
He admitted that he used his computer back in 2021 to access a "darknet" website dedicated to arranging contract killings and arranged for the murder of two residents of Hoosick Falls, New York.
He paid a website administrator approximately $16,000 worth of Bitcoin to facilitate the murders.
Pence provided the website administrator with the names, addresses, and photographs of the intended victims.
He instructed the administrator to make the murders look like an accident or botched robbery and requested that care be taken not to harm any of the children who resided with the victims.
But he reportedly suggested that having their 13-year-old son witness the killing could help it appear to be an apparent botched robbery.
The intended victims were not harmed and the FBI arrested Pence in Utah on October 27, 2021.
Pence told investigators that he solicited the murders because of the "fraught relationship" between his family and the victims following Pence's family's adoption of several of the victims' children.
In a sentencing recommendation, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emmet O'Hanlon said the plot "shocks the conscience," the Time Union reported.
Pence's attorney admitted the couple wanted their children back, but said Pence was concerned about them possibly facing abuse. He asked for a four-year term.
Along with the 7-year sentence, United States District Judge David N. Hurd ordered Pence to serve a 3-year term of supervised release following his release from prison.
