In late October, federal prosecutors in Arizona filed a 29-count superseding indictment against Baron Martin, a 21-year-old man accused of belonging to the transnational Nihilistic Violent Extremist (NVE) groups 764 and its progenitor, CVLT (pronounced “cult”). According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Martin abused at least nine victims, eight of whom were minors, some as young as 13, over the course of more than two years. Martin is alleged to have convinced his victims to, among other things, produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM), engage in acts of self-harm such as carving his alias (“convict”) into their skin, and participate in animal abuse. If his victims refused to comply, Martin would threaten to kill their family members or publicly reveal their personally identifiable information, also known as “doxxing.”
As a result of his alleged multi-year crime spree, Martin is charged with, among others, five counts of producing CSAM, 11 counts of distributing CSAM, and three counts of coercing minors to engage in sexual activity. Indeed, the debased acts identified by authorities against his victims are beyond horrific and likely force Martin to stare down the possibility of a life sentence for the CSAM charges alone.
Even so, one charge stands out most among the litany of federal offenses: a single count of 18 U.S.C. § 2339A — that is, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. It is the first time that a member of 764 or its many splinter groups has been charged with violating the statute. More specifically, the government alleges that Martin knowingly provided support for the act of killing, kidnapping, maiming, or injuring persons in a foreign country. This underlying criminal act violates one of several laws within 18 U.S.C. § 2339A. Choosing to charge Martin with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists is a significant development in not only how the DOJ prosecutes 764 but it also signals a shift in how the U.S. government classifies NVE groups – namely, as terrorist organizations.
Background on 764 and The “Com”
Born in the dark, small-town Texas bedroom of then-15-year-old Bradley Cadenhead in early 2021, 764 has emerged as one of the FBI’s top domestic terrorism threats. Named after the first three digits of Cadenhead’s hometown ZIP code, 764 primarily operates as an online child exploitation enterprise. The FBI categorizes it within the newly minted extremist typology known as NVEs.
First appearing in court documents in early 2025, NVEs are individuals who commit crimes, either in the United States or overseas, driven by political, social, or religious motives rooted in a deep hostility toward society as a whole, and who seek to destabilize or destroy it through widespread, indiscriminate chaos, violence, and disorder. NVEs often traffic in depravity as ideology, weaponizing acts of sexual extortion, animal abuse, and self-harm to express their rejection of moral and social norms.
However, 764 is not the first digital community to engage in such behaviors. Its predecessor, a network known as CVLT, emerged between 2017 and 2019 as an online group primarily on the Kik messaging app, but later spread to Instagram, Discord, and Telegram, where it engaged in grooming minors and producing CSAM. As Canadian researcher Marc-André Argentino has noted, CVLT “was one of the earliest known groups to systematically combine child sexual exploitation, coercion, and accelerationist ideology within a digital ecosystem.” Yet both CVLT and 764 are only parts of a much larger and amorphous phenomenon referred to as “The Com,” or “The Community.” Cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs has described The Com as a “kind of distributed cybercriminal social network that facilitates instant collaboration” and consists of multiple, overlapping pillars that feature cybercrime, sextortion, and offline criminal activity. Although The Com has existed for nearly a decade, law enforcement has only recently begun to grapple with the extent of its real-world harms.
In February 2021, Kaleb Christopher Merritt, one of the leaders within CVLT, was arrested in Virginia for the abduction and sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl he met and groomed on Instagram. One of Merritt’s compatriots and fellow CVLT leaders, Rohan Sandeep Rane, was arrested in France in 2022 for similar crimes, effectively splintering its leadership. By late 2023, these networks were receiving increased scrutiny from law enforcement, resulting in more arrests.
As prosecutions began to mount, CVLT’s remaining members who had not yet been swept up in legal prosecutions migrated to 764, which grew in parallel, thanks to the long hours Cadenhead spent unsupervised on the internet after dropping out of high school. It was around this time that, according to court documents, Martin began interacting with 764 and its members, going so far as to crown himself the “king of extortions,” and even authoring a guide instructing readers on how to identify young girls for grooming.
Martin’s Alleged Crimes and the Legal Mechanisms of Material Support
Domestic Terrorism
18 U.S.C. § 2331(5) defines domestic terrorism as acts that occur “primarily” within the United States that are “dangerous to human life,” violate other federal or state criminal laws, and are intended “to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.”
Martin’s alleged conduct, and that of many of NVEs, fits squarely within this definition. Their intent, as stated in Martin’s indictment, is to engage in criminal conduct, in furtherance of a political, social, or religious goal derived primarily from a hatred of society, with a desire to bring about society’s collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos, destruction, and social instability. NVEs aim to achieve their goals by grooming minors and other vulnerable individuals to become desensitized to violence by coercing them into committing acts of violence, either against themselves or others. Those acts include, for instance, forcing children to engage in sexual acts that are filmed and circulated online by NVE group members, and threatening to kidnap and kill the children and their family members. Unlike online sexual predators or child pornographers whose endgame is viewing the sexual acts of minors for their own sick pleasure, NVEs use those tactics as a means to their ends. They weaponize child pornography and violence to achieve their goal of intimidating and coercing the civilian population to bring chaos and tear down the government — the very definition of domestic terrorism.
Although there is a statutory definition of domestic terrorism in the federal criminal code, there is no criminal statute specifically making domestic terrorism a federal offense. Instead, the DOJ has turned to a statute traditionally used for violations of international terrorism and has applied it to Martin’s case.
Providing Support to an Act of Terrorism
18 U.S.C. § 2339A prohibits the provision of support to specific acts/crimes of terrorism, which are listed in 18 U.S.C. § 2332b(g)(5)(B). The statute focuses on a terrorist act rather than on the provision of material support to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). 18 U.S.C. § 2339A has traditionally been charged in cases of international terrorism that occur overseas. By charging Martin with conspiracy to provide support to terrorists, thereby expanding the use of 2339A, the DOJ is correctly describing the actions of NVEs as terrorism.
For the government to convict Martin of this offense, the prosecutors must prove that Martin conspired to provide material support or resources and that he knew (or intended) the material support or resources were be used to carry out a violation of an underlying crime of terrorism.
Let’s break the charge down. First, he was charged with conspiracy. In essence, a conspiracy is two or more people agreeing to violate the law. The agreement does not have to be in writing. It does not even have to be spoken, as long as the criminal goal is understood among the conspirators. The proof of the agreement, unspoken or otherwise, is often born out of conspirators acting in concert.
Nor does the government have to prove that any conspirator took any steps to advance the conspiracy. In the general conspiracy charge, 18 U.S.C. § 371, the government must prove that one of the conspirators took a step — an overt act — to further the conspiracy. For example, if two people agree to rob a bank, and one buys a ski mask to wear during the robbery, then they have violated the general conspiracy statute. Once that overt act occurs, the crime has been completed, and the bank robbery’s success is irrelevant. Because § 2339A contains a conspiracy provision within itself, an overt act is not required. Once the agreement is reached, the crime is committed. Although unnecessary, the government’s case is stronger if it can show that acts were taken to further the agreement. In the Martin indictment, the DOJ alleges that nine conspiratorial acts were taken in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Second, as stipulated in 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b), material support or resources can be anything except religious or medical material, to include oneself (personnel), services, money, or other tangible items. Martin has been charged with providing himself (personnel), services, and expert advice. Some of Martin’s charged conduct falls within all three categories. For example, he allegedly helped to author and circulate a manual, called the “Grooming/Manipulation Egirls Guide,” which was allegedly used to train other 764 members on how to target vulnerable individuals. The creation and circulation of the guide could be considered both a service to 764 members and expert advice.
Third, the government must prove that the material support was intended to further a violation of a separate crime of terrorism. The Martin indictment identifies the underlying terrorism offense to be a conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons in a foreign country, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 956(a). Specifically, the indictment alleges that Martin and others conspired to coerce Victim 7, who was located overseas, to kill and maim themself. Although the government must prove two separate conspiracies — in other words, two separate agreements — prosecutors will likely rely on the same evidence to prove both the § 956(a) conspiracy and the § 2339A conspiracy.
Conclusion
The addition of a § 2339A charge is not about stacking penalties. Rather, Martin faces multiple counts for his numerous other crimes that carry decades — or even life — in prison. Nor is the inclusion of the charge a procedural maneuver to bring new evidence in front of a potential jury; the facts needed to prove the terrorism charge substantially overlap with those supporting the child-exploitation charges. On paper, the 15-year maximum for material support barely changes Marin’s potential sentence.
Still, the charge provides a valuable clarification. By deploying a statute traditionally reserved for international terrorism, or more recently, other types of domestic terrorists, the DOJ has signaled that NVE networks like 764 are terrorist enterprises. They are engaged in organized campaigns of violence and coercion designed to terrorize, destabilize, and degrade society to the point of total collapse. By charging Martin with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, the shift represents a long-overdue recognition that such conduct is not just depraved — it is terrorism.
