A former ABC News producer who was arrested and charged with transporting child sexual abuse materials, knew the girl he was interacting with was a minor, new documents revealed.
James Gordon Meek, who was arrested last year in Arlington, Virginia, is accused of sharing graphic child abuse fantasies and exchanging images and videos of child sexual abuse with users on the messaging app Kik.
Now, newly unsealed letters between the FBI and Mr Meek's defence attorneys have revealed that a 16-year-old girl told investigators that he sexted with her despite her telling him she was underage, according to a report by The Daily Beast.
Naked and partially naked photos of the teenager, which included her Snapchat username in the corner of the screenshots, were recovered from a phone during a raid at Mr Meek's home last year in Arlington, Virginia.
The raid was conducted by the FBI after the agency received a tip that child abuse materials were allegedly found in a Dropbox linked to a username associated with Mr Meek.
The agency at the time found devices containing hundreds of images of children engaged in sexual acts.
The new documents do not reveal how Mr Meek and the teen first came into contact or what their level of contact was, according to The Daily Beast, but the investigators discovered saved Snapchat messages between the two.
Those messages did not include photos and were not the entirety of their conversations.
In the unsealed letter, the Department of Justice wrote to Mr Meek’s defence attorneys that the girl – referred to only as “IDENTIFIED MINOR 2” – told investigators in a recorded interview that she shared her age with Mr Meek when she was still 16.
According to the FBI, the girl told investigators that she felt “pressured” by an account believed to have belonged to Mr Meek and from other men to send sexually explicit photos.
If convicted on charges of transporting images of child sexual abuse, the 53-year-old former investigative producer for ABC News could be sent to prison for up to 20 years.
