A Burlington man accused of paying $4,000 in exchange for a video showing the torturing and apparent killing of a person he wanted dead has pleaded guilty to federal charges in the overseas murder-for-hire plot.
Sean “Marcus” Fiore, 37, entered his guilty pleas Thursday in federal court in Burlington to charges of murder for hire, conspiracy to kidnap and murder a person overseas, conspiracy to produce child pornography, and possession of child pornography.
On the charge alone of conspiring to kidnap and murder a person overseas, Fiore faces up to life in prison. His sentencing is set for March 1 before Judge Christina Reiss. He will stay in custody while awaiting that hearing.
The murder-for-hire case against Fiore appeared to build after his arrest May 19, 2019. That’s when his residence was raided as part of “Operation Bada Bing” by Homeland Security investigators and the Vermont Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
That operation involved searches of multiple residences in Vermont in the spring of 2019, leading to child pornography charges against eight people, including Fiore. His arrest May 19, 2019, came on the same day he was to graduate from the University of Vermont with a degree as a nurse practitioner.
Additional search warrants were then executed in his case, and a federal grand jury in Vermont returned indictments against him last year, accusing him of using a cellphone and the internet with the intent that a murder be committed for money.
A charge of conspiracy to kidnap and murder stated that Fiore, while in Vermont, asked a person in another country to make a video for him, showing the beating, torture and killing of a man in Venezuela.
Fiore communicated with the person he asked to do the killing by email and through the WhatsApp social media platform, the indictment charged, providing specific instructions for his co-defendant on what the video should show, including how he wanted the man to be tortured.
The instructions included: hit and kick the kidnapped man, burn his face with a lit cigarette, fill his mouth with body waste, and then wrap his head in a plastic bag and sit on his face “for at least seven minutes, or until he died.” According to charging documents, Fiore sent about $4,000 to the co-defendant to carry out the killing.
On April 8, 2019, court records stated, Fiore received an email with a link to the video, whose title translates to “Movie death of a slave (1 hour).” “It depicted the torture and apparent killing of an adult male who was restrained and tied to a bed,” according to court documents.
While the person Fiore is accused of conspiring with wasn’t named at the time of his arrest, Moraima Escarlet Vásquez Flores, a Venezuelan citizen, was arrested last year in the Colombian city of Medellín in connection with the case.
The iindictment returned by a federal grand jury in Vermont alleges that Fiore paid Vásquez Flores $4,000 to carry out the torture and killing of an unnamed person.
According to court filings, Fiore and Vásquez Flores discussed Fiore’s desire to purchase a video from Vásquez Flores, showing her torturing and killing a “slave” she would kidnap. The filings state that Vásquez Flores told Fiore she intended to commit the kidnapping by enticing a man to leave with her from a party with the promise of sex.
Vásquez Flores later emailed Fiore a video, allegedly following through on it, including the specific instructions of how to torture the person before the kilIing, according to court filings.
In April 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Vermont stated Thursday in a press release about the case, Vásquez Flores sent Fiore “a hyperlink to a 58-minute video file depicting the requested sadistic abuse and possible death of an adult male.”
An unanswered question remains. It’s unclear from court filings if a death had actually occurred, and if it did, who was killed.
According to court records, Vásquez Flores had earlier provided Fiore a video depicting the sexual abuse and torture of a child in a manner Fiore had instructed. In exchange, court records stated, Fiore paid Vásquez Flores with $600 in Amazon gift cards.
Jonathan Ophardt, acting U.S. attorney for Vermont, did not return a phone call Thursday seeking comment. Maryanne Kampmann, an attorney for Fiore, could not be reached for comment.
Federal authorities are seeking to extradite Vásquez Flores from Colombia to the United States to face federal charges.
