In June 2020, John Griffin paid $3,000 for a mother of 9- and 13-year-old daughters to fly from Nevada to Boston to be ‘trained properly’
John Griffin, 44, of Stamford, Connecticut – who was a CNN producer for the network’s show “New Day” starring Chris Cuomo – has been arrested charged with enticing minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity.
From April to July of 2020, Griffin used online messaging applications to communicate with people purporting to be the parents of minor daughters.
He attempted to impress ideas, that a ‘woman is a woman regardless of her age,’ and that women should be sexually subservient and inferior to men.
Griffin sought to persuade parents to allow him to ‘train their daughters to be sexually submissive’.
In April 2020, Griffin held a ‘virtual training session’ instructing a mother and her 14-year-old daughter to remove their clothing and touch each other.
In June 2020, he paid $3,000 for a mother of 9- and 13-year-old daughters to fly from Nevada to Boston to be ‘trained properly’.
After picking them up, the daughter was directed to engage in unlawful sexual activity at Griffin’s request.
On each count, Griffin faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in jail.
THE DETAILS:
John Griffin worked on the CNN show New Day and has been charged with three counts that he used a ‘facility of interstate commerce to abuse underage girls.’
A Vermont grand jury indicted 44-year-old Griffin, from Stamford, Connecticut for attempting to entice the young girls to engage in sexual activity.
‘According to the indictment, between April and 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,’ according to a statement from the Department of Justice on the case.
The statement goes on to state that he ‘attempted to entice two other children over the internet to engage in sexual activity.’
In the communications, Griffin is said to have tried to persuade parents to let him train their daughters to be sexually submissive toward men.
In June 2020, Griffin told a mother of two girls, aged 9 and 13 that she needed to have her daughters ‘trained properly.’
Griffin sent the mother $3,000 in order to pay for plane tickets so that she could travel with her daughters from Nevada to Boston, according to the indictment.
After the trio flew to Boston, John Griffin collected them at the airport before driving them to his home in Ludlow, Vermont.
Griffin worked shoulder-to-shoulder with former lead anchor Chris Cuomo on the show New Day.
Prosecutors say the girl was forced to engage in illegal sexual contact.
Other allegations in the indictment detail how Griffin tried to entice two other children online in order to participate in sexual activity.
In April 2020, Griffin coordinated a ‘virtual training session’ in which he instructed a woman and her 14-year-old daughter to remove their clothes during a video chat.
Two months later, in June 2020, prosecutors claim Griffin offered to pay for a woman and her 16-year-old daughter to come to his ski house in Vermont for sexual ‘training’ involving the teen.
Griffin is then said to have mentioned how he ‘sexually trained girls as young as 7 years old,’ according to the indictment.
Griffin faces at minimum 10 years to life in prison if convicted on each federal count.
‘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.’
Griffin began working with CNN in 2013, working on New Day when Chris Cuomo was its lead host.
His most recent role saw him as a producer for CNN senior political analyst John Avlon.
