Air Nationwide Guardsman arrested after making use of on-line to be a hitman

A Tennessee Air Nationwide Guardsman was arrested final week after making use of to be a hitman on a parody web site.

Josiah Ernesto Garcia, 21, was charged on Thursday with using interstate services within the fee of murder-for-hire through the use of the pretend hitman web site “Rentahitman.com.”

Garcia explored the positioning when he “wanted cash to assist his household” and “started looking on-line for contract mercenary jobs,” according to a press release from the US Lawyer’s Workplace- Center District of Tennessee.

Garcia first made contact with the positioning on Feb. 16, when he filed an employment inquiry type indicating he was all for “acquiring employment as a hitman.”

He famous his “navy expertise and rifle experience” within the type whereas additionally requesting an in-depth job description, based on courtroom paperwork filed on April 12.

The hopeful hitman remained in touch with the web site over the following a number of days, offering his Tennessee driver’s license, a headshot, and a resume.

“Im searching for a job, that pays properly, associated to my navy expertise (Capturing and Killing the marked goal) so I can assist my child on the way in which,” Garcia mentioned by a follow-up e-mail, according to the criminal complaint. “What can I say, I take pleasure in doing what I do, so if I can discover a job that’s much like it, (similar to this one) put me in coach!”

On his resume, Garcia bragged about being an professional marksman “awarded for not lacking a single bullseye on all the targets and for capturing professional with 2 (or extra) weapons.”

Garcia, who was employed by the Air Nationwide Guard since July 2021, claimed he glided by the nickname “Reaper,” which he earned “from Army expertise and Marksmanship.”

Feeling antsy for work, Garcia despatched two follow-ups between February 23 and March 13 hoping to listen to again about potential work.

Following an order from the FBI, the web site’s proprietor, Bob Innes, responded to Garcia, saying “Josiah, a Subject Coordinator will probably be in contact within the close to future. You’ll obtain a message when they’re prepared. Timing is predicated on shopper wants.”

An undercover FBI agent was assigned to pose as an agent for the web site and contacted Garcia for a telephone interview, which led to the 2 assembly for an in-person the place Garcia mentioned he was “wanting into [killing people for money] for some time.”

On April 12, Garcia was scheduled to satisfy with the spy to debate a possible “goal” that may pay $5,000 for taking out the shopper’s abusive husband.

Garcia was given the primary half of the payout together with photos of the pretend goal.

Upon receiving the fee, Garcia requested if photograph proof of the murdered goal was required earlier than the FBI made the arrest.

Throughout certainly one of his post-arrest interviews with the FBI, Garcia admitted to being supplied and subsequently accepted a job at Vanderbilt Medical in Nashville, and was wanting to inform the spy the information throughout their assembly.

Following the arrest, the FBI searched Garcia’s residence and recovered an AR-styled rifle, the identical one he allegedly mentioned he would use throughout contracted killings.

Rentahitman.com was created in 2005 by 4 associates trying to create a cyber safety firm, because it was a play on phrases with “Hire as in rent us, Hit as in community site visitors, and males, as a result of there have been 4 of us,” web site proprietor Innes told People in final November.

Whereas the corporate was failing to get off the bottom, it started receiving “many inquiries about murder-for-hire companies,” which led Innes to show it right into a parody website that included false testimonies from fictional clients, a Service Request Type and even a careers tab the place folks, like Garcia can “apply” to be a hitman.

Each the “Service Request Type” and “Careers Type” have been used many occasions to arrest folks all for utilizing the companies of a hitman on somebody they know, together with a New Mexico man who plotted his in-law’s homicide on the positioning.

In July 2020, a Michigan woman tried to rent a hitman by the web site to have her husband killed for $5,000, a criminal offense she admitted to in November 2021.

If the false testimonies and faux ads weren’t warnings of the parody website, underneath the “highest stage of training part” within the Careers Type “Trump College, Dwelling Depot U & McDonald’s College credit are acccepted.”

If convicted, Garcia faces as much as 10 years in jail.