CNN Senior Producer John Griffin was taken into FBI custody and charged with shocking sex offenses with young girls aged seven years. Unsigned documents contain vulgar details about the crimes that could lead to life imprisonment.
Griffin was charged by a grand jury in Vermont with using an interstate commerce facility in order to lure minors into illegal sexual activity. Griffin was a senior producer at CNN’s struggling morning program “New Day”. He was taken into custody following a federal indictment that alleges that he forced parents to allow their daughters to have sexual activity in Griffin’s home.
At the time of Griffin’s arrest, the indictment was sealed. The indictment contains explicit details about the crimes the CNN senior producer is charged with. It also contains messages Griffin sent via Kik, Google Hangouts and texts.
The Vermont U.S. Attorney’s Office said that Griffin attempted to persuade their parents to allow him to teach their daughters sexual submissiveness.
Griffin later transferred $3K from the mother to buy plane tickets so that her daughter, nine, and her mother could travel to Boston from Nevada. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Vermont, the daughter was given instructions to engage in illegal sexual activity in the house. An unopened indictment stated that he had sexually trained girls as young as seven years of age.
CNN fired Griffin after he worked alongside Chris Cuomo from 2013 to the launch of his primetime show in 2018. Griffin’s LinkedIn page declares he works”shoulder-to-shoulder with lead anchor Chris Cuomo, seeing him through each show and producing live breaking news across the country and around the world. CNN spokesperson says they take Mr. Griffin’s charges seriously.
CNN did not immediately respond to a number of questions including whether it would let the legal process play out before making a decision on Griffin’s long-term employment status.
According to the Department of Justice Griffin will be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years imprisonment and a maximum of life imprisonment for each count. A motion was filed to hold the defendant in detention pending his trial. The defendant has a history of substance abuse and alcoholism, which is evidence that he was guilty.