Stamford man, a CNN staffer, allegedly coerced women to sexually 'train' daughters at his Vt. home

Authored by nhregister.com and submitted by DwightDEisenhowitzer
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A Connecticut resident and CNN employee is facing federal charges after enticing women and their underage daughters to engage in illegal sexual activity at his home in Vermont, federal prosecutors said Friday.

John Griffin, 44, of Stamford, was arrested Friday by the FBI after a federal grand jury in Vermont charged him with three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity.

Griffin appeared Friday afternoon in New Haven federal court via Zoom. Judge Robert Spector said he would file an order for Griffin to be transferred to Vermont.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Griffin has been a CNN employee since 2013.

“We take the charges against Mr. Griffin incredibly seriously,” a CNN spokesperson told Hearst Connecticut Media on Friday. “We only learned of his arrest this afternoon and have suspended him pending investigation.”

Griffin was once a producer for the Chris Cuomo show and was most recently a producer for CNN senior political analyst John Avlon.

The indictment alleges that from April to July of last year, Griffin used the alternative website, alt.com, to seek women who were “submissive” and “open-minded.”

Griffin then used messaging features on Kik and Google Hangouts to communicate with some of the women, pretending to be the parents of underage girls. In the communications, Griffin tried to persuade parents to let him train their daughters to be sexually submissive toward men, the indictment stated.

In June 2020, Griffin told a mother of 9- and 13-year-old girls that she needed to have her daughters “trained properly,” the indictment stated. Griffin then transferred about $3,000 to the woman for plane tickets so she and her 9-year-old could fly from Nevada to Boston’s Logan airport, the indictment stated.

The mother and child flew to Boston in July 2020. Griffin picked them up and drove them to his home in Ludlow, Vt., where prosecutors said the girl was forced to engage in illegal sexual contact.

The indictment details other allegations that Griffin tried to entice two other children over the internet to participate in sexual activity.

In April 2020, Griffin coordinated a “virtual training session” where he instructed a woman and her 14-year-old daughter to remove their clothes during the video chat, prosecutors said.

In June 2020, prosecutors said, Griffin offered a trip to a woman and her 16-year-old daughter to his Vermont ski house for sexual “training” involving the child.

In one of the conversations, Griffin told someone claiming to be a father that he “sexually trained girls as young as 7 years old,” the indictment stated.

If convicted on each federal count, Griffin faces 10 years to life in prison.

The indictment alleges that the federal government intends to seek the forfeiture of Griffin’s Vermont home, two of his vehicles and any other property allegedly used in the commission of the offenses.

An arraignment for Griffin has been tentatively scheduled for Dec. 15 in Vermont, according to court records.

green_velvet_goodies on December 12nd, 2021 at 00:00 UTC »

Poor fucking kids. Those parents need to go to jail.

jwaterboyk on December 11st, 2021 at 20:27 UTC »

This guy is clearly a demented pedophile, but his scheme only worked because the parents of the kids were complicit. What the fuck is wrong with people?

BaseballGuy2001 on December 11st, 2021 at 20:22 UTC »

What in the actual fuck? Parents coerced into taking kids to be sexually assaulted by a stranger for cash. Throw book at parents and the dude.