CNN producer John Griffin, who worked closely with ex-anchor Chris Cuomo, was arrested Friday on charges associated with luring minors to his Vermont home for “sexual training.”
Griffin, 44, was charged with three counts of attempting to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity. He faces a minimum of 10 years in prison per count and up to life in prison.
The network producer used messaging apps like Kik and Google Hangouts to contact parents of underage girls. According to a federal indictment, he tried to convince them to let him train the minor girls to be “sexually submissive.” He believed “women are sexually subservient and inferior to men” and that a “woman is a woman regardless of her age.”
Griffin messaged with a woman who had two daughters, aged nine and 13. He sent the woman $3,000 to travel from Nevada to Boston. He picked the woman and her 9-year-old daughter up from Logan Airport in July 2020 and took them to his residence in Ludlow. There, “the daughter was directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity.”
In addition, Griffin contacted at least two other families with underage girls between April and June of 2020.
“The charges against Mr. Griffin are deeply disturbing. We only learned of his arrest yesterday afternoon and have suspended him pending investigation,” CNN said in a statement.
Griffin worked for the network for more than eight years. According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked closely with disgraced anchor Chris Cuomo, who was fired this month for helping his brother, former Governor Andrew Cuomo. An investigation by New York’s attorney general showed Chris helped his brother defend himself against sexual misconduct allegations.
