A senior producer, who worked 'shoulder-to-shoulder' with now-disgraced ex-anchor Chris Cuomo on his primetime show, has been fired by CNN after he was arrested last week for sex crimes with underage girls.
John Griffin, a dad from Stamford, Connecticut, was working on CNN's morning program 'New Day', prior to a grand jury in Vermont indicting him on Friday 'with three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity.'
CNN initially suspended Griffin, 44, while awaiting an investigation but the network has now terminated its former employee after Friday's hearing.
'The charges against Mr. Griffin are deeply disturbing. We learned of his arrest Friday afternoon and terminated his employment Monday,' a CNN spokesperson said in a statement.
At this time, Dailymail.com has not been able to identify an attorney for Griffin.
The indictment accuses Griffin of trying to persuade mothers to allow their daughters to engage with sexual activity with him at his Vermont ski home.
The former producer, who also worked for Fox, ABC and CBS News, 'sought to persuade parents to allow him to train their daughters to be sexually submissive,' according to court documents from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Vermont.
Prosecutors specify crude details of sexual requests sent by Griffin in the indictment. Griffin would regularly communicate with the mothers of these underage women on messaging apps, including Kik, Google Hangouts, and texts.
John Griffin, 44, a veteran producer on CNN who worked 'shoulder to shoulder' with the now- cancelled, ex-anchor Chris Cuomo, has been arrested and indicted on three counts of luring underage girls to his rented property in Vermont for 'sexual subservience' training
Cuomo (left) and Griffin (right), following the Paris attacks in November 2017. The pair previously worked on ABC news together.
He would also send them his 'disturbing' beliefs, including one where he states that there is a 'wanton whore' at 'the core of any' female and that 'a woman is a woman regardless of her age,' according to messages shared in the indictment.
The now ex-CNN producer also exchanged text messages with a mother of two daughters, ages 9 and 13. One of the text messages read: 'One of the big lies of this society is that women are delicate innocent angels and they are in actuality, naturally, the dirtiest sluts possible, in EVERY metric.'
He also sent to the same mother: 'When handled appropriately, a woman is a woman regardless of her age,' and then tried to convince her that her 13-year-old daughter would be 'trained properly' by him.
Griffin, a father himself, paid $3,000 worth of plane tickets for the mother and daughter to fly out to Boston from Nevada, where he picked them up in his Tesla before driving them to his home in Vermont, according to court papers.
In Vermont, 'the daughter was directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity,' authorities alleged.
The indictment further showed that Griffin once bragged about how he 'sexually trained girls as young as 7 years old' and recommended a mother's 14-year-old daughter, after describing how she 'would be a good candidate for such training.'
He allegedly offered virtual training, where he 'planned to instruct the 14-year-old and her mother to remove their clothing and touch each other' on webcam. He also told them about how in-person sessions would include 'spanking' and 'c**k worship.'
Ex-CNN producer John Griffin rented a getaway ski home in Ludlow, VT, where he would attempt to persuade mothers to drive their underage daughters to
On one occasion, Griffin tried to convince a mother that her 13-year-old daughter would be 'trained properly' by him at his home in Ludlow, Vermont. Pictured: one of the rooms at the Vermont home
CNN suspended Griffin, pending an investigation, before terminating him after he was charged with 'three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity'
Chris Cuomo (left) was one of Jim Griffin's (right) clients before he eventually became a news anchor on CNN. Pictured: Cuomo and Griffin with Television personality Billy Bush (center) at a William Morris Agency Upfront Party at the Four Seasons Restaurant on May 15, 2006 in New York City
John Griffin is the son of longtime William Morris agent Jim Griffin, who represented Regis Philbin, Geraldo Rivera, Fred Thompson and other boldface names. He left the agency in 2009 for Paradigm, before it merged with Endeavor.
However, back in the day, one of Jim Griffin's clients was a young Chris Cuomo.
Jim's son, John, joined Cuomo on CNN's 'New Day' from the show's birth in 2013 and stuck with the recently-axed anchor until the launch of Cuomo Primetime in 2018.
Griffin's LinkedIn page hasn't been updated since the producer's termination by CNN. But, it states that Griffin and Cuomo worked 'shoulder-to-shoulder' on each show, 'producing live breaking news across the country and around the world.'
Cuomo had previously worked with Griffin at ABC News between 2005 and 2013.
Dailymail.com has directly contacted Cuomo's media representatives for comment.
Images and tweets featuring Chris Cuomo from the Twitter account of ex-CNN Producer John Griffin. Griffin a producer for Cuomo has been indicted on charges of luring young girls to his Vermont ski house for 'sexual subservience' training.
Griffin (center) with Chris Cuomo (right) in front of the White House on September 23rd, 2015. Griffin's LinkedIn page states that Griffin and Cuomo worked 'shoulder-to-shoulder' during their time on Cuomo Prime Time at CNN ,'producing live breaking news across the country and around the world'
According to the indictment, Griffin also 'attempted to entice two other children over the internet to engage in sexual activity'. He 'proposed to engage in a 'virtual training session' over a video chat that would include him instructing the mother and her 14-year-old daughter to remove their clothing and touch each other at his direction' in April 2020.
In another unrelated encounter in June 2020, Griffin 'proposed to a purported mother of a 16-year-old daughter that she take a 'little mother-daughter trip' to Griffin's Ludlow ski house for sexual training involving the child.'
Additionally, federal prosecutors are seeking the confiscation of Griffin's getaway property, his two cars, including a Tesla and a Mercedes, and other his computers as well as cameras that were used in the series of crimes, according to the indictment.
Griffin is facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and could be handed a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for each count, according to the Department of Justice.
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