James Gordon Meek, a former investigative journalist for ABC News, pleaded guilty on Friday to federal child pornography charges and is facing a minimum of five years in prison.
Meek is a former senior producer for ABC and served as a senior counter-terrorism advisor to the US House Committee on Homeland Security up until his arrest in January of this year.
Meek was charged with transportation of child pornography, distribution of child pornography, and possession of child pornography.
According to evidence obtained by investigating authorities, Meek possessed horrific and depraved content that depicted sexual abuse of children and even infants.
Meek may not have physically abused anyone, but his conduct leaves no doubt that he is a monster who should be thrown in prison for much longer than five years.
People reported, "Among the images federal agents allegedly found in Meek’s possession was one of a naked prepubescent boy, a strap crossing his face, his mouth forced open and his hands bound to his feet. A Santa Claus hat is on his head and a bow is around his waist. Agents also recovered conversations in which Meek — who authorities say used the handle ‘Pawny4’ — allegedly tells a 12-year-old girl that he fantasized about ‘abducting, drugging, and raping’ her. Another video allegedly shows the rape of an infant."
Meek's conversations indicate that he is a major threat to the public and especially to children.
People continued by saying, "Meek allegedly engaged in chats with minors and adults obsessed with hurting children in social media conversation threads, the criminal complaint states. According to the complaint, Meek allegedly spoke with minors as young as 12 on sites like Snapchat — authorities claim he used the username ‘hoolijax’ — and Omegle, a communication platform offering random matches for anonymous text communication, which can be filtered for likely minor matches."
Based on what the evidence is telling us, Meek is an especially dangerous predator. Thankfully, there seems little chance that he will get the minimum sentence when he is sentenced in September.
Meek may have a minimum of five years but his maximum is forty years.
Due to the plea deal it seems likely that Meek's sentence will fall somewhere in the middle.
Meek was an acclaimed journalist who was highly respected and involved in many significant journalistic efforts.
However, he threw all that away to satisfy his sick desires. According to the FBI, Meek possessed images going back as far as 2014 meaning that he has been hiding his monstrous behavior for nearly a decade.
Meek won an Emmy award in 2017 for his coverage of the Pulse nightclub shooting as well as helped in the production of an acclaimed Hulu documentary. Now, all of that means nothing and Meek's dramatic fall from grace will end with him in federal prison.
