A man in Baltimore, Maryland, is charged with sexually exploiting children on behalf of a Satanic terrorist network after facing little accountability in three other sexual abuse cases, court documents show.
Erik Madison, born 2005, used popular online platforms such as Roblox to extort minors into performing depraved acts on camera in the style of 764, a cult-like predator network that poses a global terror threat, according to a Friday Department of Justice (DOJ) affidavit. Police and the FBI investigated Madison three times while he was a minor for allegedly distributing child pornography, obtaining sexual images from a minor and posting an online video of him raping his dog, but he continued his exploitation spree, the affidavit said.
Madison’s is the latest case linked to 764 and similar predatory groups, which build online relationships with minors before convincing them to harm or kill themselves or to film sexual acts. Many 764 predators begin their extortion as minors themselves, according to Becca Spinks, who leads a team of researchers infiltrating the networks and reporting them to law enforcement. The justice system’s leniency toward juveniles helps 764 predators thrive.
“We can’t just keep waiting three or four years for them to reach an age where they can be prosecuted and in that time they have dozens of victims,” Spinks told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A federal affidavit describes predatory online comments in the case of Erik Madison, who is charged with exploiting minors in the style of Satanic terrorist network 764, on Nov. 7, 2025. (Image courtesy of Department of Justice)
Madison is being held in custody until a Nov. 14 detention hearing and faces charges of child sexual exploitation, online coercion and enticement and cyberstalking, court records show. Court records do not yet list an attorney for Madison.
The defendant admitted to Baltimore County police in June 2020 that he sent child pornography to someone via Instagram, the DOJ’s affidavit says. A detective who spoke to him and his mother “explained Maryland child pornography laws, appropriate internet behavior and the proper supervision of teenagers on the internet,” after which the case was closed, according to the DOJ.
Madison also allegedly admitted in 2022 that he solicited nude images from a female minor on Instagram and Snapchat. Authorities “advised” Madison to stop talking to the alleged victim and explained “the legal consequences of his actions,” the DOJ said. Later in 2022, while he was still a minor, Baltimore County police allegedly caught him posting a video of himself sexually abusing his dog, found child pornography on his phone and filed charges for both crimes, but the case’s outcome is not disclosed in the DOJ affidavit.
“I think that under 18, we tend to see them be a little bit more bold because they know that there’s this barrier where they’re not gonna get in serious trouble because they’re not adults,” Spinks told the DCNF about 764-style predators.
“What their friends learn from that is that they can do this and get away with it, and they’re right, obviously,” Spinks said.
By 2025, the FBI obtained search warrants for Madison’s online accounts, suspicious that he was exploiting children again. Using multiple usernames such as “Leo,” Madison told his minor victims to produce pornography of themselves or cut their bodies, the DOJ said. Madison sometimes offered victims “Robux,” a digital currency from the Roblox game, in exchange for following his sadistic demands, though he also resorted to threats, the agency said.
“i need you to use your blood to draw on a wall,” Madison allegedly told one victim.
“There are pictures of several females, whose faces are not depicted, with the word ‘Leo’ written on their bodies in red,” the DOJ said about files it obtained. Other images showed “red colored writing on a wall that says, ‘Leo 764 skin creep bleach dawn’ and ‘I gave my soul to Leo,’” according to the affidavit.
The DOJ described Madison, allies of 764 and similar extortion groups as “Nihilistic Violent Extremists” who hate society and seek social collapse by harming vulnerable populations. Adherents of 764’s ideology often promote Satanic and neo-Nazi imagery, the DCNF previously reported.
Federal agents found papers in Madison’s bedroom with his “Leo” username written on them, including one that read, “Horror House Leo Heil Satan,” the DOJ said.
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