A Pennsylvania man has been arrested and federally charged after authorities rescued his 13-year-old alleged victim from a Santa Clarita Valley motel on Friday.
After meeting the young girl online, Matthew Edward Pysher, 18, of Bangor, Pennsylvania, allegedly groomed her into sending him sexually explicit material of herself and engaging in acts of self-harm. Authorities say Pysher traveled to Los Angeles last week to meet the victim, who had recently turned 13.
Authorities encountered Pysher and the victim at a Castaic motel room, where they found condoms, a knife, lubricant, razor blades, bloody tissues and a boarding pass for Pysher’s flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, according to a federal criminal complaint. The victim told authorities that Pysher had sex with her, cut her with a knife and repeatedly choked her to the point that she couldn’t speak.
Pysher has been charged in the criminal complaint with travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. Pysher’s deputy federal public defender could not immediately be reached for comment.
At a news conference Monday, authorities said they believed Pysher to be associated with nihilistic violent extremist ideology, which First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli called “a growing threat to American families” and “one of the most twisted and disturbing ideas to crawl out of the Internet.”
Essayli described nihilistic violent extremists as individuals “who engage in criminal conduct within the United States to further goals that derive mainly from a hatred of society and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos, destruction and social instability.” He said these individuals often work as part of a network — such as the violent sexploitation group called 764.
These violent online groups have allegedly abused hundreds of mostly female minor victims worldwide, according to Homeland Security Investigations. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline received more than 1,300 reports related to these online groups in 2024 alone.
Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI field office, said the number of nihilistic violent extremists targeting children is growing nationwide. The FBI is investigating more than 450 of these cases, he said.
Pysher’s case is the second one charged in less than a week in the Central District of California. Last week, Bryant Najera Gonzalez, a 24-year-old Downey man, was arrested on a federal criminal complaint charging him with coercing, inducing and enticing minor girls to create and send him sexually explicit video.
Authorities accused Gonzalez of grooming one of the girls to film herself engaging in self-harm and self-humiliation and sharing the images with others online.
“Finding and arresting individuals who are part of this ideology and who act on it is one of the highest priorities,” Essayli said.
In a message to parents, Essayli said he doesn’t believe children should be online, “because there’s no way for you to guarantee 100% that your kids are not going to be groomed or approached by a guy like this.”
“Any child with access to the Internet is a sitting duck for these sick, deranged and demonic individuals looking to harm your children,” said Essayli, who also urged parents to go through their children’s phones.
According to the criminal complaint, authorities first learned of the victim on Feb. 10, after her mother contacted the FBI because she was concerned her daughter was being encouraged to harm herself by someone named “Matthew.” Authorities said the victim met Pysher on a Discord server related to individuals suffering from mental illness and the two spoke for around three months.
Essayli said that on Feb. 20, law enforcement took the victim’s digital devices to try and identify the person behind the username online. That same day, he said, it “turned into an emergency situation” when the FBI learned the victim had run away from home and left behind a suicide note.
Law enforcement quickly identified Pysher as the person behind the username on Discord and tracked him to the motel, according to the complaint. In the motel room, they found found a Faraday bag, commonly used to block electronic signals, near Pysher’s cellphone.
According to the complaint, the victim told authorities that Pysher’s plan was for them to go to the top of a “big” hotel and jump off together.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and California Highway Patrol, is investigating this matter.
