Ex-CNN producer sentenced to 19.5 years after using 9-year-old in 'sado-masochistic activity'

Former CNN producer John Griffin was sentenced to 19.5 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a child sex crime, which included transporting a 9-year-old girl to his Vermont home "to engage in bondage and sado-masochistic activity," the Justice Department said Wednesday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Griffin, a former Chris Cuomo colleague, in 2021 on three counts of using interstate commerce to entice minors into unlawful sexual activity, but two of the counts were dropped with his plea deal in December.

Since 2019, Griffin spoke to parents online to convince them to allow him to train their young daughters in sexual submission, court records show. 

Griffin's plan culminated in 2020 when he paid for a mother who he met online and her 9-year-old daughter to fly to Boston, where he picked them up and brought them to his Vermont home, prosecutors said. 

"While in Vermont, Griffin engaged in what he considered to be sexual training of the child. This 'training' included Griffin forcing the child to perform a sex act with him and using the child to engage in bondage and sado-masochistic activity," the Justice Department said.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions sentenced Griffin on Tuesday to 235 months, or 19.5 years, in prison, followed by 15 years of supervised release. The judge also ordered Griffin to pay approximately $1.1 million in restitution to the child and to forfeit the Tesla he used to drive the girl and her mother around in, among other items.

"I'll never trust anyone again," the young victim said during the hearing Tuesday as she appeared via video with her grandmother. 

"You make me sad and angry," she told Griffin, according to the local outlet VTDigger.

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.