A former CNN producer who reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors for sexually abusing a nine-year-old girl has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
John Griffin of Stamford, Connecticut, pleaded guilty last year to charges of using interstate commerce to entice and coerce the girl to engage in sexual activity at his Vermont ski house. As part of the 2022 plea deal, the government dropped two remaining counts of enticement of a minor against Griffin, 46.
On Tuesday, he was sentenced to 19.5 years in prison and an additional 15 years of supervised release during a US District Court hearing in Burlington, the Associated Press reports.
Griffin, a Princeton University alumni, worked closely with ousted anchor Chris Cuomo during their time at CNN. Griffin worked for eight years at the network but was fired following his December 2021 indictment and arrest in the child sexual assault case.
He had previously worked as a producer at ABC, Fox News, and CBS, according to his LinkedIn page.
The disgraced network producer initially pleaded not guilty to the charges, before reaching a plea deal that allowed a federal judge to sentence him to at least 10 years and up to the remainder of his life.
Griffin was also ordered to pay $1.1m in restitution to the victims.
According to the indictment, Griffin met Heather Carriker on a website during the summer of 2020 and persuaded her to bring her nine-year-old daughter to his ski home, where he molested the minor.
Griffin paid the woman and girl to fly from Nevada to Boston, picked them up and drove them to his Vermont home where the girl said Griffin sexually assaulted her, court records say.
Prosecutors argued in their initial complaint that Griffin approached women online, and tried to convince them that he should “sexually train” their minor daughters, because “a woman is a woman regardless of her age.”
The minors he allegedly attempted to sexually assault were as young as seven years old, per the criminal complaint.
Griffin cannot have contact with people under the age of 18, except in the presence of an adult who has been approved by a probation officer, and is prohibited from being in areas where children congregate, such as schools, playgrounds and theme parks, unless approved by the probation office beforehand.
