A former CNN producer pleaded guilty in federal court Monday of using interstate commerce to coerce a 9-year-old girl into engaging in sexual acts with him, the Associated Press reported.
John Griffin, 45, allegedly convinced a woman he met on a website to bring her child to his ski home in Ludlow, Vermont, to engage in sexual acts in 2020, the Associated Press reported. He allegedly paid the woman to fly from Nevada to Logan Airport in Boston, where he then picked them up and drove them to his Vermont residence.
Authorities arrested Griffin on December 10, 2021, on three counts related to child sex charges, the outlet reported. He initially pleaded not guilty to all three counts, though the federal government recently dropped two of the charges.
Griffin worked for CNN for eight years as a producer for the now-cancelled program, “New Day,” according to his LinkedIn profile. The network fired him following his arrest, AP reported.
VT: CNN producer, John Griffin, 45, pleads guilty to child sex charge in deal.
Using interstate commerce to entice and coerce a 9-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity at his Vermont ski house.https://t.co/djBOF1lTeb
— Dalton (@DaltonReport) December 13, 2022
He currently faces a minimum of 10 years and up to life imprisonment pending his March 20, 2023, sentencing. He further faces up to $250,000 in fines to his victims and has agreed to forfeit his Tesla vehicle and electronic items and profits from the sale of his Vermont home, AP reported. (RELATED: CNN Producer John Griffin Charged For Persuading Woman To Let Him Have Sex With 9-Year-Old Daughter)
He will also be required to participate in a sex offender evaluation and register as a sex offender, the outlet reported. The former producer is forbidden from being in any contact with minors unless a responsible adult is present and is banned from being near schools and other settings where children are around.
In a separate incident, the suspect allegedly ordered a woman and her 14-year-old daughter to remove their clothes in a video, the Department of Justice (DOJ) previously stated. He also allegedly suggested to a mother that she and her 16-year-old daughter join him at his Vermont home for a “little mother-daughter trip” where he could sexually “train” the teenager, the DOJ noted.
An indictment alleged that Griffin had stated that a “woman is a woman regardless of her age” and that women should be “sexually subservient” to men, the DOJ reported. In June 2020, he allegedly advised a mother of a 13 and 9-year-old that her oldest daughter should be “trained properly.”
“The charges against Mr. Griffin are deeply disturbing,” a spokesperson for CNN previously said. “We only learned of his arrest yesterday afternoon and have suspended him pending investigation.”
Griffin had previously been hit with a $15 million lawsuit by a 9-year-old plaintiff named “Jane Doe,” Fox News reported.