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LOS ANGELES (CN) — A Pennsylvania man who federal prosecutors consider a nihilistic violent extremist pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges he groomed a 13-year-old online and flew to California to have sex with her.
Matthew Pysher, a slender, bespectacled 18-year-old from the small town of Bangor, appeared in court in downtown LA for his post-indictment arraignment before a U.S. magistrate judge.
“Not guilty” he told the judge after confirming he understood his rights and the charges against him.
Prosecutors say Pysher encouraged the girl, whom he met last December on the social media platform Discord, to send him explicit sexual images of herself as well as images of her cutting herself.
Authorities arrested Pysher last month at a Rodeway Inn Motel along a freeway in northwestern LA County, where he had taken the girl. The girl’s mother had initially alerted the FBI after she discovered that a individual named Matthew was encouraging her daughter to harm herself.
After the girl ran away from home and left a suicide note on Feb. 20, law enforcement tracked her to the motel the same day.
The girl told law enforcement that Pysher had cut her arms with a knife and had intercourse with her even though she told him she didn’t want to. During intercourse he repeatedly choked her to the point that she wasn’t able to speak, according to the affidavit of an FBI agent in support of Pysher’s arrest.
She also told law enforcement that Pysher had planned for them to find a big hotel and to commit suicide by jumping off the roof together.
His trial is provisionally scheduled for May 12. He faces as long as 30 years in prison if he’s convicted of traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
Federal prosecutors consider Pysher a so-called nihilistic violent extremist, an individual who either by themself or as part of a group seeks to destroy civilized society through the corruption and exploitation of vulnerable people, including minors.
Nihilistic violent extremists, according to the FBI agent’s affidavit, frequently use social media platforms to target individuals and desensitize them to violence by, among other things, breaking down societal norms regarding engaging in violence, normalizing the possession, production, and sharing of child sexual abuse material and “gore material,” and otherwise corrupting and grooming their targets to commit acts of violence.
They also conduct coordinated extortions of victims by blackmailing them to comply with the demands of the network, which can include self-mutilation, online and in-person sexual acts, harm to animals, sexual exploitation of siblings and others, acts of violence, threats of violence, suicide, and murder.
Members of such networks share the photos and videos they collect from their victims on social media to gain notoriety among their fellow nihilists and to install fear in the people they target, the FBI agent said in the affidavit.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988, or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). Visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
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