BURLINGTON — Prosecutors want to lock Sean Fiore away for the rest of his life for his role in an overseas murder-for-hire plot in which a victim was tortured on video and for producing images of child sex abuse.
His attorneys are asking for a prison sentence of 25 years, saying the 38-year-old Burlington man wants a chance at treatment and rehabilitation.
A daylong sentencing hearing in the case took place Friday in federal court in Burlington, with two experts — one for the prosecution and the other for the defense — testifying for hours about their assessment of Fiore’s risk to the public if he were ever to leave prison.
The hearing ended before attorneys for either side could present their differing sentencing arguments to Judge Christina Reiss, though lengthy documents the lawyers filed ahead of the proceeding lay out their cases and shed new light on the scope of the case.
The attorneys will return to the courtroom next week, when the judge is expected to decide how long Fiore will stay behind bars.
Among the issues Reiss wants addressed, she indicated Friday, was the question of whether the tortured victim actually died — and whether that matters given Fiore’s intent.
The judge’s lingering questions are the latest twist in the case that started as an investigation into child sex abuse images and uncovered much more in Fiore’s computer files. Those images led authorities to a murder-for-hire plot in which Fiore paid a woman in Venezuela to record herself torturing and killing a kidnapped man.
Fiore’s computer files also showed other violent and sadistic images and scenes, according to the prosecutor’s sentencing document, including videos showing the fatal “crushing” of insects, fish, small dogs and hamsters.
Fiore pleaded guilty in October to charges of conspiracy to kidnap and murder a person overseas, murder for hire, conspiracy to produce child pornography and possession of child pornography.
He faces up to life in prison for the first charge alone. He is currently in custody awaiting his sentencing.
Fiore’s case dates back to May 2019 when his residence was raided as part of “Operation Bada Bing” by Homeland Security investigators and the Vermont Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
That operation involved multiple raids of residences in Vermont, leading to child pornography charges against eight people, including Fiore. He was arrested the same day he was set to graduate from the University of Vermont with a degree as a nurse practitioner.
After searching Fiore’s seized electronic devices, investigators found graphic emails and chats between Fiore, in Vermont, and the woman in Venezuela, identified in an indictment as Moraima Escarlet Vásquez Flores.
Fiore had specific instructions for the torture and killing, the documents show, including asking Vásquez Flores to hit and kick the man, burn his face with a lit cigarette, fill his mouth with body waste, and then wrap his head in a plastic bag and sit on his face “for at least seven minutes, or until he died.”
According to charging documents, Fiore sent about $4,000 to Vásquez Flores to carry out the killing.
In April 2019, Fiore received an email with a link to the video, whose title translates to “Movie death of a slave (1 hour),” prosecutors said. “It depicted the torture and apparent killing of an adult male who was restrained and tied to a bed,” according to the charging documents.
Vásquez Flores, a Venezuelan citizen, has been arrested in the Colombian city of Medellín in connection with the case.
She had earlier provided Fiore a video depicting the sexual abuse and torture of a child in a manner Fiore had instructed, according to charging documents in Fiore’s case. In exchange, Fiore paid Vásquez Flores with $600 in Amazon gift cards, the indictment stated.
Federal authorities are seeking to extradite Vásquez Flores from Colombia, where she was arrested, to the United States to face federal charges.
Reiss, in court Friday, said she had watched both videos sent to Fiore — the one involving the adult and the other of the child — but wasn’t sure after viewing them whether the actions in the videos were staged or actually resulted in a death.
“I also don’t know if any of that makes any difference,” the judge said of lingering questions, adding that it all could come down to Fiore’s intent with the specific scripts he provided for how he wanted the torture and killing to play out.
In court documents, both the prosecution and defense indicated they’re not certain if the man in the video was killed, with the defense suggesting he could have been “rendered unconscious by a drug” given by the woman.
“Regardless, Mr. Fiore acknowledges that his instructions were for Ms. Vasquez Flores to asphyxiate the man until he died,” Fiore’s attorneys, Maryanne Kampmann and Robert Sussman, said in their sentencing document.
They wrote that they agreed Fiore’s offenses were “egregious.” But, they said, those actions were in “stark contrast” to the law-abiding life that Fiore had been living and to the work he did in the medical field helping in the healing of others.
“Mr. Fiore has lost his marriage, his career, his friends, his status as a respected member of the community,” the defense attorneys wrote, adding, “a sentence of 25 years would allow Mr. Fiore to rehabilitate himself and to one day reintegrate into society.”
Prosecutors called on the judge to make sure that never happens. At the time of his arrest in May 2019, prosecutors wrote, Fiore was in negotiations with Vásquez Flores to produce another torture video — this time involving two victims.
“If released,” the prosecution document added, “Fiore could cause the death of another human being — a child or adult — for his sexual pleasure.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Judge considers life behind bars for Vermont man in overseas murder-for-hire plot.