A saga of drugs, death, and abuse has ended with 77 years in prison for an online cult leader who sexually preyed on children. But federal authorities warn his “nihilistic” movement is far from over.
Prosecutors won a 77-year sentence on Wednesday for 27-year-old Kyle Spitze on charges of producing child pornography, possessing and accessing the material, and abetting the distribution of animal crush videos. Spitze helped lead the online groups “764” and “HarmNation,” which befriended and manipulated children to harm themselves, perform sexual acts, torture animals, or otherwise degrade themselves on camera, according to the Department of Justice.
The sentence concludes the DOJ’s push for maximum punishment after multiple delays since Spitze pleaded guilty to his crimes in December 2024. Court records detail how Spitze harmed at least 30 victims worldwide — including two who died by suicide — with the backing of his father and fellow predators in group chats. His actions contributed to a rising form of sadistic crime the DOJ dubs “nihilistic violent extremism,” leading to what officials said was the longest-ever federal sentence for this kind of terrorist.
Unmasking ‘Criminal’
The FBI became aware of Spitze’s online crimes through his troubled home life and desire for fame, according to a DOJ sentencing memo to the court.
Discord, a gaming platform where Spitze met victims under the alias “Criminal,” told the FBI in December 2023 about him and other users involved in child exploitation. As the FBI worked to identify “Criminal,” Spitze gained notoriety in early 2024 by posting a video of an abusive interaction with his mother’s boyfriend in their home. The footage showed Spitze provoking the man into shooting him in the ear, prompting Spitze to later appear on a YouTube channel “to paint himself as a victim,” the DOJ wrote.
Federal agents began piecing together who Spitze was as “numerous comments on YouTube identified the defendant as a pedophile,” the DOJ said. His mother’s boyfriend ultimately died by suicide in a standoff with police, and Spitze found his mother dead from drug abuse in a Knoxville hotel room days before Spitze’s arrest. “Instead of calling 911 for help after finding his mother unconscious in her own blood, the defendant made two graphic videos of the scene where his mother died and shared them to social media and online messaging applications,” the DOJ’s memo says.
The scope of Spizte’s cruelty to children became clearer when agents jailed him and searched his iPhone in February 2024, according to an FBI affidavit. Investigators found he had no job and spent endless hours targeting children “to promote his content and elevate his status in [HarmNation] and 764,” the sentencing memo says.
Spitze had created photo albums with labels such as “cut signs” showing victims’ self-harm, the affidavit found. In addition to sexualizing themselves, his victims were coerced into killing and mutilating animals, including one who left a chicken in a bathtub “with the entrails pulled out to spell the defendant’s moniker, ‘crim,’” according to the DOJ’s memo.
“One of the defendant’s victims, a 15-year-old female who was known to ‘belong’ to the defendant, is seen licking a toilet, her arms visibly bleeding from numerous wounds, believed to be self-afflicted,” the memo said about one video.
The predation did not stop once Spitze was behind bars, court records show. His father, Michael Spitze, was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison in May after admitting to trying to tamper with witnesses during his son’s incarceration.
Prosecutors caught the elder Spitze helping his son contact four minor victims to try silencing them with gifts or orders to destroy evidence. “Just don’t tell anyone where you are getting $$ please,” Michael Spitze wrote in one message to a child. “Would not look right to many folks.”
The DOJ and defense lawyers tied the father’s actions to drug abuse, noting that Kyle dealt with the same habit. “Defendant saw his son go down the same path doing nothing to stop it,” prosecutors wrote in May.
Eleven of Spitze’s 30 victims were never identified, prosecutors said. Two ended their lives after he contacted them from jail, while another fled her home country. One victim wrote in an impact statement that she could hardly stand leaving her room or house due to the trauma of her abuse.
“After leaving school to recover, I was in one of the most vulnerable states of my life,” yet another victim wrote. “I had spent much of my teenage years being sexually extorted. … I lived in fear.”
‘He is completely remorseless’
The FBI terms groups such as 764 as “nihilistic violent extremists” rather than more typical terrorists motivated by race, religion, or politics. “They want to sow chaos and facilitate the destruction of society,” the bureau said in a February warning to parents.
764 was created on Discord by Texas teenager Bradley Cadenhead in 2020, taking on Satanist-inspired themes and symbolism. The federal government’s arrests of offenders in this category rose by 500% in 2025, FBI Director Kash Patel said while announcing Spitze’s sentence.
Spitze advanced his ideology in jail by creating a “devil worship group” with other inmates called “Colts Harmnation,” prosecutors said in a second sentencing memo. Correctional officers found that he had convinced other inmates in 2024 to perform sexual acts as part of the cult, with one carving the group’s symbol into his body. Spitze admitted to hiding a razor inside a personal Bible and pleaded guilty to several prison-related offenses over the incidents, according to the DOJ.
Defense attorney Jonathan Cooper objected to “everything” the DOJ said about the prison cult in a responding motion, despite officials hearing the entire story from those involved. “The level of government hyperbole has now, hopefully, reached a final pitch,” Cooper wrote.
Spitze could continue posing a danger in prison if officials are not careful, researcher Becca Spinks told the Washington Examiner. Spinks has spent years investigating and documenting nihilistic violent extremists and reported Spitze’s concerning online footprint to law enforcement.
“Kyle has been seeking out mentally ill people in jail to cut themselves and do other things for him as part of his new ‘devil worship cult,’” she said. “That’s the DOJ’s wording, not mine. He even modeled the name off of Harm Nation, the 764 splinter group, which was the basis for all the DOJ’s evidence against him.
“He’s completely remorseless,” Spinks told the Washington Examiner.
In an unusually passionate tone for a court filing, prosecutors asked George W. Bush-appointed Judge Thomas Varlan for the maximum allowed punishment.
“Congratulations, you have our attention! Society is shocked and appalled at your actions and your [nihilistic violent extremist] ideology,” they wrote about Spitze. “Society is aware of the permanent physical and emotional scars you and your 764/HN members have given to the vulnerable young teen girls all over the world. Society is aware that you made sport of placing young minors in your own special ‘hell’ simply for the crime of being an insecure teenaged girl.”
“You will receive a sentence that reflects the seriousness of your crimes!” the memo declared.
EL SAYED TOUTS ENDORSEMENT FROM FROM LOBBYISTS TIED TO TERRORIST FINANCING: ‘DEEPLY GRATEFUL’
Prosecutors acknowledged that Spitze has long suffered from drug addiction — but convinced the judge that none of his circumstances allow for leniency.
“The defendant is the definition of evil,” they wrote.