A former CNN producer has pleaded guilty to enticing and coercing a nine-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity with him.
John Griffin, 45, of Stamford, Connecticut, pleaded guilty in a federal court on Monday in connection with the 2020 case.
According to the plea deal, Griffin met a woman on a website and persuaded the woman to bring her nine-year-old daughter to his Ludlow, Vermont, ski home for illegal sexual activity, reported Associated Press.
He subsequently paid the woman and girl to fly from Nevada to Boston and picked them up and drove them to his Vermont home where the girl alleged that Griffin sexually assaulted her, court records say.
He was arrested last December and had originally pleaded not guilty to three counts.
Griffin was fired by CNN where he worked for eight years, after he was arrested.
He pleaded guilty to using interstate commerce for the enticement of a minor as part of a plea deal in which the two remaining counts of enticement of a minor he was initially charged with last year were dropped.
Griffin allegedly asked the parents of several women to bring their daughters to his home as a part “sexual subservience” training, reported the New York Post.
Prosecutors said that he told the parents he believed that a “woman is a woman regardless of her age” and that all women should be sexually subservient and inferior to men.
He faces a possible sentence of at least 10 years and up to life in prison when he is sentenced on 20 March 2023 and a fine of up to $250,000 along with other fees.
He has also agreed to forfeit his Tesla vehicle and to donate half of the proceeds from the sale of his Vermont ski home and a Mercedes into the court registry.
Griffin also faces a term of five years to life on supervised release, with conditions, including that he participates in a sex offender evaluation and treatment and register as a sex offender.
(Additional reporting by agencies)
