I have wanted to post about Michael Berenson for a while now, although he is not an offshoot of 764 but rather a precursor from many years ago. There are plenty of older cases of internet extortion and his is one of the more extreme examples, for the severity of the crimes, the stupidity by both himself and the police, and the abundant relevance of autism throughout.
Michael Berenson / extremexmods / Quagmire / Beefmaster / Corey
"I'm asking that anything as specific to Michael's conduct or his face be placed under seal."




Background
Michael Berenson is an autistic Jew (not a joke). He lived with his parents in Shoreline, Washington, and his grandfather was a well known cardiologist named
Gerald Berenson. Dr Parker, who spoke to Berenson for 3 hours and was lied to throughout, provided some examples of his autistic fixations being police shows, the weather, and car racing. This is evident in some of his
online activity. Searching his username "
extremexmods" reveals
several examples of
begging on freelance websites on
freelancer and
fiverr. Additionally, there are multiple
spam twitter accounts sharing the @ called "mike is cool". This suggests he was an unemployed neet generating income through shady internet things.

extremexmods also appears on
Documenting Reality, I don't have an account so am not able to view the threads enough to attach everything.


Crimes:
Berenson visited Chateen for the first time in 2008 (Other named sites are Blog TV, Condor Chat, Live.Me, TinyChat, Musically, YouNow, MyLOL, Skype and Omegle) In 2010 he joined with a group of others to form a group called "Base", members of this eventually left and formed other groups after around 10 months. This was due to Berenson's sadism, use of extortion, and distributing the material outside of the group.
Examples of Omegle point games used:

Example of a victim dox for blackmail:

Berenson continued to work independently and with others on a daily basis, the scale of his offending shown:

Additionally, Berenson also targeted fellow predators by remotely stealing their hard drives and blackmailing them for more material.
Phone Home:
A date isn't mentioned of when this happened, but I believe it takes place around 2011-2013. Kate/Peyton, who is referred to as MV-24 describes meeting Berenson in 2011 when she was 14. In an effort to end the blackmail she called his home and spoke to his mother, Irene Dabanian, who did not seem concerned or take action. MV-24's mother describes being swatted multiple times with local police, agents, and homeland security showing up over the years to persecute her daughter.
Dox:
Berenson's dox was posted to
pastebin by other online predators because they "did not like Berenson’s tactics or the way he treated girls".
Police Visit:
Interactions with MV-8 are documented, including messages such as "cam up for daddy master and finger that little pink asshole <3" or “
HOW MUCH DID YOU SHOW UNDER YOUR SHIRT? I ALREADY KNOW SO YOU MAY AS WELL CONFESS. IT WAS MORE THAN JUST TUMMY. BULLSHIT, WHAT ELSE? … YOU TREAT ME LIKE SHIT TODAY”

MV-8 eventually blocked Berenson in an attempt to end everything, leading to more threats and the attached message:

Two days after this was sent, MV-8 utilised the pastebin dox to report Berenson to the police. "
A detective in Seattle went to Berenson’s house and warned him to stop getting on chat websites. Berenson’s mother (Irene Dabanian) told the detective she would monitor what Berenson was doing on the laptop and ensure that nothing like this happened again." The outcome of this interaction was further encryption and acting out the threats made to MV-8.
Search Warrant:
Although a dox had been floating around publicly for years, revealing his face and details to numerous victims, and previous run ins with the police, it wasn't until the 10th of May, 2017 authorities showed up with a warrant. In the two months preceeding this, Michael had visited Chateen 2260 times. Berenson admitted to pretty much everything, a weird detail that stood out to me was that "he named numerous of his Facebook friends as persons he had victimized when they were minors"
(I do not know if this was his real Facebook account or a fake one, considering his face and name was already known I wouldn't doubt it was his real account).
Court:
-Michael was supported by his family throughout, his father and mother (Robert and Irene) showed up in person, with his mother even asking to speak on behalf of her son. Michael's siblings (Julia and Carl) provided "well intended letters", including "Michael's cousin, the lawyer from New York, former assistant U.S Attorney, he wrote a wonderful letter."
-Many statements from victims and family, notably Amanda Todd's mother Carol. Berenson admitted to seeing Todd in chatrooms but denied interacting with her directly (despite having her as a Skype contact and sharing the contact with others), 10 videos of her were found on his devices in a folder titled "Forever Amanda", along with screenshots of conversations about her suicide and a comic depicting her suicide. Berenson had also saved the video of Katelyn Davis hanging herself, and was allegedly involved with a girl named Angel who committed suicide:

-The Prosecution argued that autism shouldn't be used as an excuse to cover up psychopathy, that Michael is highly intelligent and amassed 500 bitcoin valuing $250,000 to $2,500,000? His autism made him a threat by fixating on exploiting young girls and only stopping once physically incapable through incarceration. They comment that evaluations made by Dr Parker were shit and did not address psychopathy or other disorders besides autism.
-The Defence states that it is impossible to know the extent of the damage caused, and that they apologies on behalf of Michael and his parents. Out of the 24 months in custody, Berenson spent 22 in solitary confinement "because of the autism syndrome and the things that have happened to him" - he had gotten into fights with other prisoners "over a candy bar" and "someone trying to force him into sex". They say Berenson did not have education on sex, life, or socialization due to "a disorder that he didn't choose to have". The defence requests he is sent to sex-offender specific institutions to receive therapy, $200,000 paid for through a trust fund set up by his family.


-When it was time for Berenson to make comment, his defence had to reiterate on the autism and flat affect. Excerpt:
"After hearing how it affected them and just -- and how they had to go through therapy and all that, see I wasn't thinking about that. I was just thinking about the feel good feelings that were happening at the time."
-At the end of sentencing, the Judge remarks on Berenson's intelligence and is astonished he could print out 500 papers as a school prank.

-Michael Berenson was sentenced to 55 years, out of 1000+ victims, around 20 were ordered to receive $5000 each.
Name: MICHAEL A BERENSON
Register Number: 48608-086
Age: 36
Race: (((White)))
Sex: Male
Release Date: 05/02/2064
Located At: USP Coleman II |
Michael unsuccessfully attempted to appeal his sentence due to ineffective assistance of counsel and conflict of interest (representing Daniel Walton, another Chateen predator), this had no merit in part because the defence "repeatedly argued that Defendant had reduced culpability because of his autism spectrum disorder." Berenson tried to argue that the Judge was impartial and antagonistic for showing sympathy to the victims. he "also challenges Judge Levy’s impartiality based on her statements that her mother is an expert in autism, and that she herself worked with people with autism since childhood."