November and December have been extremely turbulent months for CNN, which first had to deal with the scandals involving anchor Chris Cuomo and then with Don Lemon’s role in the Jussie Smollett hoax.
Cuomo helped his brother — Democrat Andrew Cuomo — go after the women who accused him of sexual harraseement and inappropriate behavior.
The anchor was then accused of sexual harraseement himself. And now, news is breaking that a producer who worked closely with Cuomo for years, John Griffin, has been indicted for sex crimes against minors.
Read more below.
John Griffin
According to an indictment from the U.S. Attorney of Vermont, a federal grand jury in Vermont charged Griffin with "three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity."
The indictment says that Griffin, who has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), used applications such as Kik and Google Hangouts to reach out to parents of minor girls.
He would tell the parents that a "woman is a woman regardless of her age," and then share his proposal.
Sexual Submission
According to the indictment, Griffin asked the children’s parents that they let him train their daughters to be "sexually submissive."
In June 2020, the document says, Griffin told one woman — a mother of a 9-year-old and a 13-year-old — that she needs to make sure her daughters are "trained properly."
He transferred more than $ 3,000 to the woman for plane tickets so she and her younger daughter could fly to Boston. The woman and the child flew to Boston in July, where Griffin drove them to his house in Ludlow, Vermont.
At that house, "the daughter was directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity."
Other Children
Griffin also preyed on children online, the indictment says. In April 2020, he asked a mother and her 14-year-old daughter to participate in a "virtual training session" — a video chat in which he would tell the mother and the daughter to undress and touch each other.
Similarly, in June 2020, Griffin offered a mother of a 16-year-old child to take a "little mother-daughter trip" to his house in Vermont for "sexual training."
Griffin faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years of imprisonment and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment on each count.
Relationship With Chris Cuomo
According to a report from The New York Post, Griffin worked at CNN for years.
On his LinkedIn page, he boasted about working "shoulder-to-shoulder with lead anchor Chris Cuomo, seeing him through each show and producing live breaking news across the country and around the world."
He described himself as an "entrepreneurial producer who combines uncommon technical skills with exceptional, experience-honed editorial judgment."
Countless photos of the two men together have been circulating on social media for days.
Griffin also worked as a producer at ABC News, Fox News and CBS. He allegedly has three young children.
]]>The Inquisitr
