Former CNN Senior Producer John Griffin Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Charges in Federal Court: Here’s What You Don’t Know

Last week, former CNN Senior Producer John Griffin plead guilty in federal court after being arrested and charged with child sex crimes last December. Griffin, 45, plead guilty to “using interstate commerce to entice and coerce a 9-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity at his Vermont ski house.”

Two of the three charges originally filed against the disgraced ex-CNN producer were dropped, per an agreement he made with the federal government. Griffin was indicted by a federal grand jury a year ago, and he was taken into custody the same day.

Three days later, on Dec. 10, 2021, Griffin was suspended by CNN, where he’d worked as a producer for eight years. Shortly after, the news network terminated his employment.

Griffin’s sentencing is scheduled for March 2023. He faces a minimum sentence of 10 years to life in prison, and a fine of up to $250,000. He must also pay “full restitution to the victims” of an amount to be determined by the court.

Additionally, Griffin “has agreed to forfeit a Tesla vehicle and electronic items,” and will “donate half of the proceeds from the sale of his Vermont home and the upcoming sale of a Mercedes vehicle into the court registry,” the Associated Press said.

Griffin was originally charged with three counts of using “facility of interstate commerce to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity,” federal prosecutors said in a press release.

Following his pending prison stint, Griffin, who has a wife and three young children, will likely face supervised and conditional release. These conditions may include participating in a sex offender treatment, registering as a sex offender, and being forbidden from contacting any minors under the age of 18, except in the presence of a probation officer-approved adult.

Griffin will also likely be prohibited from being near areas where children congregate (i.e. schools, playgrounds and theme parks), unless he received advanced approval by a probation officer.

The details of Griffin’s case are wickedly shocking, even in today’s desensitized and sex-crime plagued America.

According to a federal indictment, Griffin, a resident of Stamford, Connecticut, was charged in December 2021 by grand jury in Vermont “with three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity.”

Prosecutors said that Griffin coerced mothers to “allow their minor daughters as young as seven years old to engage in sexual activity in his Vermont ski home.”

Evidence against Griffin included drone footage he took which showed a “completely naked 9-year-old girl” standing next to him. Griffin was in his underwear.

“When confronted with this video during an interview by FBI agents, Griffin’s first response was merely to suggest he was not looking at the naked girl, despite that she was standing so close to him to be touching,” prosecutors said in a pretrial detention memo.

So how did Griffin target his prey?

“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,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont revealed in a statement.

“On these communication platforms, Griffin sought to persuade parents to allow him to train their daughters to be sexually submissive.”

In a press release, prosecutors added, “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 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.”

Prosecutors note that the vehicle Griffin picked up the mother and child in was his 2019 Red Tesla Model X. He traveled from Vermont to meet them at Logan Airport in Boston, and then drove them to his ski house located in Ludlow, Vermont.

In addition to his pending trial, Griffin was served with a $15 million civil lawsuit by a 9-year-old “Jane Doe.”

However, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, this young girl was not the sole victim of Griffin’s predation.

“The indictment also includes specific allegations that Griffin attempted to entice two other children over the internet to engage in sexual activity. In April of 2020, Griffin proposed to engage in a ‘virtual training session’ over a video chat that would include him instructing the mother and her 14-year-old daughter to remove their clothing and touch each other at his direction,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

According to court documents, Griffin also told this woman that he had “sexually trained girls as young as 7 years old,” and he thought the woman’s daughter “would be a good candidate for such training alongside her mother.”

“The sexual training would eventually include in-person meetings featuring ‘spanking’ and ‘c*** worship,’” Griffin added.

“In June of 2020, Griffin proposed to a purported mother of a 16-year-old daughter that she take a ‘little mother-daughter trip’ to Griffin’s Ludlow ski house for sexual training involving the child.”

Griffin was active on a fetish site seeking “submissive” and “open-minded” women. During a chat session, he said that “one of the big lies of this society is that women are delicate innocent angels and they are in actuality, naturally, the dirtiest s**** possible in EVERY metric,” the FBI said.

Court documents unveiled a chat log in which Griffin said that he believes there is a “wanton wh***” at the “core of any” woman, regardless of her age.

Griffin’s fetish account profile was on alt.com, which self describes as a “BDSM dating, fetish and kink site,” where its “members find alternative, BDSM, bondage and fetish partners,” according to the FBI indictment.

His profile, under the account handle “Admit_It,” was created several years prior to July of 2020, when the investigation began, according to court documents.

In his indictment, prosecutors said that in 2019 and 2020, Griffin communicated with many people he met on alt.com via popular communication platforms like Kik and Google Hangouts on many occasions.

Through these platforms, Griffin “sought parents who would allow him to train their minor daughters to be sexually subservient.”

Griffin was arrested a year ago in New Haven, Connecticut, on the morning of Dec. 10, 2021. He was taken into custody by Vermont-based FBI Special Agent Antoine Waite.

Records in Vermont reveal that Griffin purchased his $1.8 million Ludlow, Vermont ski house with his wife in February of 2020. He bought the home under the guise of an LLC, GriffSkis LLC, which is registered to their $4.3 million Norwalk home.

In Griffin’s indictment, prosecutors said that on Feb. 21, 2020, Griffin, “acting through a Vermont limited liability company, acquired a ski house located at 126 Grouse Lane in Ludlow, Vermont. John Griffin communicated in furtherance of the crimes alleged herein while in or near this ski house, and offered to host mothers and their minor daughters at this location for purposes of sexual training.”

Public records show that Griffin, his wife and three children live in Rowayton Village in Norwalk, Connecticut. His young children include a daughter and two sons. Neither Griffin nor his wife have issued public statements regarding his arrest and guilty plea.

Prior to his arrest, Griffin served as a Senior Producer at CNN since April of 2013, for a total of eight years.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Griffin worked “shoulder to shoulder” with another scorned and recently fired CNN bigshot, news anchor Chris Cuomo.

Griffin and Cuomo worked together on the network’s morning show “New Day,” with Griffin “seeing [Cuomo] through each show and producing live breaking news across the country and around the world.”

Ironically, both Griffin and Cuomo have recently become this “breaking news.” Cuomo was fired by CNN last year, in December of 2021, after the nation forced the corrupt network to review his actions in helping his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Andrew Cuomo was facing an investigation into sexual harassment and sexual misconduct accusations. Chris Cuomo knew about his brother’s assault allegations, but never revealed them on air, CNN reported.

However, the public is intensely skeptical about the given reason for Chris Cuomo’s firing. According to countless news sources, Chris Cuomo was also a sexual predator, with a series of sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations surfacing from his old career at ABC News

CNN, with a suspicious track record for hiring and providing fame, status and power to dangerous and rapacious men, suspended Griffin shortly after learning about the charges against him.

In a statement issued on December 10, 2021, CNN said, “We take the charges against Mr. Griffin incredibly seriously. We only learned of his arrest this afternoon and have suspended him pending investigation.

Later, on December 13, CNN added the following statement, “The charges against Mr. Griffin are deeply disturbing. We learned of his arrest Friday afternoon and terminated his employment Monday.”

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Hannah Menslage

Hannah Menslage is the assistant publisher and editor of Katy and Fort Bend Christian Magazines. She also writes a lifestyle column and manages the social media accounts for these publications. Hannah is a journalism/communications student in the Valenti school at the University of Houston. In her free time, Hannah enjoys gardening, cooking and baking, hanging out with her dog and cat, writing and completing fun DIY projects. Contact her with any questions at hannah@katychristianmagazine.com.