Man jailed for Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire plot against ex

Scott Quinn Berkett (US Department of Justice via CBS News)

A 25-year-old Beverly Hills man who paid a dark web group $13,000 in Bitcoin to murder a woman he briefly dated will spend five years in federal prison for a scheme the victim said “will haunt me for the rest of my life. “

Scott Quinn Berkett refused to leave the woman alone after she violated him, then joined an Internet group that advertised itself as a murder-for-hire service but instead gave messages and other information to “members of an investigative media organization” who contacted FBI, prosecutors said in court documents.

“His words leave little doubt about his desire and intent to see his ex-girlfriend murdered,” they wrote, adding in a sentencing memo that Berkett’s crime “was not a momentary lapse in judgment, but a premeditated plot to kill the victim because she rejected his advances.”

An Eagle Scout who briefly attended Washington State University, Berkett was working as a part-time software engineer when federal agents arrested him in May 2021 after he went to a grocery store to buy alcohol, part of an alibi he had planned with a man he believed to be an assassin, but was actually an undercover FBI agent.

He has been in custody since then, with a US district judge Mark C. Scarsi in Los Angeles on Monday sentenced him to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty in June to using interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire. His victim said in a sealed letter cited by prosecutors that she thinks about the plot against her “almost daily” and her anxiety is exacerbated “by seeing someone resembling the defendant or a fleeting glimpse of a California license plate.”

Berkett met his victim when they were both administrators of a Facebook page for the Japanese anime show RWBY. He paid for her room at the Avalon Hotel during her visit to the Los Angeles area, and she had sex with him “but felt pressured to do so” and said he was “sexually aggressive,” according to a 38-page complaint. in the Central District of California.

She broke up with him after the trip, “but he refused to accept the breakup,” prosecutors wrote, and continued to message her on various social media platforms. The contact continued until a member of the victim’s family called and texted Berkett’s father asking his son to stop contacting her. Investigators believe Berkett impersonated his father to reply, “Consider this case closed.”

About two weeks later, the FBI learned of Berkett’s murder-for-hire scheme. Members of the “Dark Web Group” provided agents with the name and address of the victim as well as evidence “that Bitcoin payments were made with the understanding that an unknown person would murder” her. They included messages Berkett sent after he signed up for the group and was asked, “Hey, are you looking for an assassin?”

Berkett replied: “Saving for a single hit. I will post the job as soon as I have BTC,” referring to Bitcoin. He submitted the payment the next day and wrote:

“I want it to look like an accident, but robberies gone wrong might work better. As long as she’s dead. I also want her phone retrieved and destroyed beyond repair in the process.” He also requested that “proof of her death be sent to me” along with a photo of her corpse and a photo of an obvious tattoo on one of her forearms.

“I will refrain from sending a photo of the tattoo to avoid photoshopped images,” Berkett wrote, according to the complaint. “If possible, it would also be appreciated to let me know if she was in Arizona or Idaho so I can confirm via the obituaries as well.” He later wrote: “I look forward to receiving communications which will tell me when, approximately, to prepare my alibi.”

By then, the recipients of Berkett’s messages had contacted the FBI. Court documents reveal few details about the “members of an investigative media organization” with the FBI special agent Caitlin Bowdler described their source of information as “a group on the Dark Web that advertised murder-for-hire services” in the May 2021 complaint.

“As law enforcement currently understands, this Dark Web Group was a scam,” Bowdler wrote. “To my knowledge, law enforcement has not had direct contact with this Dark Web Group.”

Armed with the group’s information, an undercover agent messaged Berkett through WhatsApp, posing as the hitman. The agent ended up discussing the murder plot with him over the phone, when Berkett confirmed a wealth of details from the dark web group’s messages and agreed to send the man another $1,000 through Western Union.

Bowdler saw Berkett send the money from a Rite Aid, and he was arrested the next day. Investigators also searched his 2008 Mercedes.

A judge refused to release him on bail several times, along with his lawyers Evan Jenness and Blair Berk included with their latest request a supportive letter from his parents that described him as “very rule-oriented and respects the law.”

He has lived in their Beverly Hills home all his life, “except for three semesters when he was a student at Washington State University,” where he was proudly part of a group that served as “an unofficial security escort patrol for female students who walked alone late . at night.”

“The group never dated any of the students they escorted – they were just out to help protect them,” the letter said. “Scott was very proud to be a part of that group.”

United States Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian said in a written order that Berkett’s own admission “that he has multiple personalities, including a violent personality” shows that he can harm other people, and she said that releasing him to his parents “would not reduce the danger as the defendant allegedly committed the instant offenses from such location and consequently concealed his behavior from his parents.”

The judge also said that Berkett “recently attempted to procure evidence of his innocence by agreeing to pay a third party $10,000 to create Internet messages suggesting that the defendant was being framed.” Referring to the family’s wealth, Chooljian wrote, “The defendant’s access to significant financial resources and his foreign travel experience reinforce” her belief that Berkett would endanger his parents’ home and flee the area to try to escape his charges. According to prosecutors, Berkett earned just $650 a month as a software engineer, but still had easy access to the total of $14,000 he paid for the woman’s murder “demonstrating his access to financial resources.”

Berkett signed a plea agreement on April 27. Prosecutors said in earlier filings that his default range under US Sentencing Commission guidelines puts him above the statutory maximum of 10 years in prison, but they ended up recommending five years because his “mental health condition is a mitigating” factor.”

They included with their 10-page memo the sealed letter from the victim as well as sealed letters from her mother, father and sister. Her mother wrote of feeling helpless because: “There is a man in this world who wants my child dead. A man who wants a picture of her corpse. If I say this too strongly, who’s to say it won’t irritate him further. He’s not going to be locked up forever. If he was brave enough to do this, what else is he capable of?”

Judge Scarsi allowed Berkett’s defense memo to be filed under seal after his lawyers said it “refers to confidential mental health information and other information of a very personal nature, throughout.” He then sentenced Berkett to the prosecutor’s recommended 60 months on Monday afternoon.

Berkett was indicted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathy Yo and Joseph David Axelradwho left for private practice in May.

Read the prosecution’s full sentencing memo below:

(Image: US Department of Justice via CBS News)

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