A federal judge in Fort Worth has officially rejected a bid for a new sentence from Bradley Chance Cadenhead, the 20-year-old founder of a notorious online exploitation network.
The decision, handed down Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, means Cadenhead will remain behind bars to serve out a heavy 80-year term for his role in leading a group linked to the grooming and abuse of minors.
Cadenhead first made headlines in May 2023 when he was sentenced in Erath County. Investigators identified him as the creator of “764,” a decentralized extremist group that authorities say uses the internet to coerce vulnerable children into performing sexual acts or engaging in self-harm.
While Cadenhead’s legal team initially tried to appeal the state-level conviction, that appeal was dismissed in late 2023 for lacking any real legal merit.
In this latest federal challenge, Cadenhead’s new attorneys argued that his original trial lawyer didn’t do a good enough job. They claimed he was pressured into a guilty plea without getting a proper psychological evaluation that might have helped lower his sentence.
They argued that if a forensic psychologist had testified about his mental state, the judge might have been more lenient.
Judge Pittman didn’t buy it. In his written order, the judge noted that Cadenhead and his original lawyer had actually discussed using expert witnesses but ultimately decided to have his existing counselor testify instead.
That counselor did take the stand, telling the court that Cadenhead wasn’t a danger to himself or others. Pittman ruled that choosing one expert over another is a strategic decision made by lawyers all the time and doesn’t prove that the legal defense was “ineffective.”
The ruling emphasized that federal courts have a very high bar for overturning state convictions. Pittman described the federal petition as a “rehash” of arguments that had already been shot down by Texas state courts. Because Cadenhead couldn’t prove that his lawyer’s performance was truly deficient or that a different expert would have changed the 80-year outcome, the court denied his request for a writ of habeas corpus.
This decision effectively ends Cadenhead’s primary path to a shorter sentence. With his federal appeal denied and no certificate of appealability granted, the founder of the “764” network is set to remain in the custody of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for several decades.
READ: Florida Officials Warned As Convicted Felon Slated For Release Under Biden Commutation
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