Ransomware negotiator sentenced to 70 months in prison after helping infect victims with malware

Ransomware negotiator Angelo Martino will serve a 70-month prison sentence for secretly helping BlackCat (ALPHV) attackers.
Martino loses crypto products, houses, cars and boats, and must pay 10% of his future salary after his release.
Martino was the third exposed negotiator; his co-conspirators Ryan Clifford Goldberg and Kevin Tyler Martin previously received four-year sentences for similar internal collusion.

A ransomware negotiator who worked with attackers behind his clients’ backs has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison.

A sentencing memorandum released by the U.S. government says Angelo Martino, 41, will spend the next 70 months in prison and will also lose all the cryptocurrency the attackers paid him for sharing inside information, as well as all the homes, cars and boats he bought with that money.

He will also have to pay 10% of any salary he earns after his release.

Request a shorter sentence

In November 2025, it was reported that three men who worked as ransomware negotiators to help victims minimize the damage from these attacks were actually agents of the dreaded BlackCat ransomware collective (ALPHV).

Over the next few months, it was reported that the men – Ryan Clifford Goldberg of Georgia, Kevin Tyler Martin of Texas, and Angelo Martino of Land O’Lakes, Florida, not only failed to help their victims, but actually infected some of them with ransomware, and then shared valuable inside information with other BlackCat affiliates, in order to maximize payout.

Their victims included at least five companies: a Florida medical device company (which demanded a $10 million ransom and ultimately paid about $1.2 million), a Maryland pharmaceutical company, a California medical office and engineering company, and a Virginia-based drone manufacturer.

Even though all three risked heavy prison sentences (between 10 and 20 years), they received much less. Martin and Goldberg were each sentenced to four years in prison in April 2026, while Martino will spend five years and ten months behind bars. Martino pleaded guilty and asked for a 24-month prison sentence, saying he “provided substantial assistance that contributed to the indictment and conviction of two co-defendants.” It didn’t work.

Via Ars Technica