John Griffin, a Senior Producer for CNN, has been arrested and charged with using various social networking sites and apps to solicit girls as young as 9 for sex. The Department of Justice claims Griffin flew some of these children and their mothers to his home and sexually assaulted the minors.
The senior producer, who has bragged on his LinkedIn about working “shoulder-to-shoulder” with ex-anchor Chris Cuomo, has now charged with three counts for criminal activities involving 9-to-16-year-old girls following his former colleague’s departure.
On LinkedIn, Griffin wrote that he is the “lead anchor’s senior producer” and said that he sees Cuomo “through each show” while “producing live breaking news.”
“Griffin was arrested by FBI Albany and charged with three counts of utilizing commerce to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity,” said FBI Special Agent Janeen Diguiseppi in a statement attributed to him and posted by the FBI Albany Twitter account.
“The charges stem from an alleged incident the occurred in Ludlow, Vermont in 2020.”
“The allegations are deeply disturbing,” said Diguiseppi.
#FBI Albany SAC statement regarding the arrest of CT resident John Griffin by our Rutland, VT Resident Agency. @USAO_VT release here: https://t.co/mYOr6ZcpdN pic.twitter.com/3yhjn3NYqi
— FBI Albany (@FBIAlbany) December 10, 2021
Included in the Justice Department statement was:
“According to the indictment, from April to July of 2020, Griffin utilized the messaging applications Kik and Google Hangouts to communicate with people purporting to be parents of minor daughters, conveying to them, among other ideas, that a “woman is a woman regardless of her age,” and that women should be sexually subservient and inferior to men. On these communication platforms, Griffin sought to persuade parents to allow him to train their daughters to be sexually submissive.
In June of 2020, Griffin advised a mother of 9- and 13-year-old daughters that the mother’s responsibility was to see that her older daughter was “trained properly.” Griffin later transferred over $3,000 to the mother for plane tickets so the mother and her 9-year-old daughter could fly from Nevada to Boston’s Logan airport.
The mother and child flew to Boston in July of 2020, where Griffin picked them up in his Tesla and drove them to his Ludlow house. At the house, the daughter was directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity.”
Federal prosecutors also allege that Griffin attempted to solicit two other children, and proposed hosting a “virtual training session” in which the children would engage in sexual behavior, at their mother’s behest, for his satisfaction.
Additionally, the federal government seeks the “forfeiture of Griffin’s Ludlow house, his Tesla, a Mercedes, and other property that was used in the commission of the charged offenses.”
“We take the charges against Mr. Griffin incredibly seriously,” a CNN spokesperson said on Friday. “We only learned of his arrest this afternoon and have suspended him pending investigation.”
If he’s found guilty, Griffin will face a mandatory minimum of 10 years in jail on each count, and a maximum of life in prison.