Former CNN producer John Griffin sentenced to 19 years in jail for sexually assaulting 9-year-old girl

Connecticut, USA

Former CNN producer John Griffin was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl, revealed prosecutors. Griffin earlier pleaded guilty to child sex charges last December as a part of a plea deal which saw two other counts of child sex charges initially filed against him dropped. 

The 45-year-old Connecticut man reportedly met a woman online and persuaded her to bring her 9-year-old daughter to his house, where he engaged with the minor girl in illicit sexual activity. According to New York Post, the mother, Heather Carriker, was also arrested and slapped with child sex charges.

A victim during Tuesday’s hearing told the judge that she has difficulties trusting people while telling Griffin that “You make me sad and angry.”

John Griffin: A proven paedophile

As per prosecutors, Griffin would communicate with parents having minor girls over Google Hangouts and lure them into making their girls engage in sexual activity with himself. During one of those conversations, Griffin would once say that a “woman is a woman regardless of her age” and that women should be sexually subservient and inferior to men.

In June 2020, Griffin instructed the mother of a 9-year-old and a 13-year-old girl that her responsibility was to ensure her older daughter was "properly trained." He then transferred over $3,000 to the woman for plane tickets, enabling the mother and her 9-year-old daughter to travel from Nevada to Boston.

According to prosecutors, the mother and child flew to Boston in July 2020, where Griffin picked them up in his Tesla and drove them to his residence in Ludlow. At his house, the daughter was coerced into engaging in unlawful sexual activity.

Other charges of child sex against Griffin

In exchange for Griffin's guilty plea filed last December, prosecutors dismissed two charges related to allegations that he also attempted to entice two other children into sexual activities. One of these allegations involved a mother and her 14-year-old daughter, to whom Griffin offered a "virtual training session."

Also read: Chris Licht exits CNN after 13-month-long crisis-ridden tenure

Griffin was employed at CNN for approximately eight years before being terminated following his arrest in December 2021. The mother of the victim, Heather Carriker from Henderson, Nevada, was arrested and charged in August 2020, although the current status of her case remains unknown.