Former ABC News Journalist Pleads Guilty to Child Pornography Charge

James Gordon Meek, a former ABC News producer, has pled guilty to the transportation and possession of child sexual abuse material.

The former journalist is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 29 and is facing a mandatory minimum of five years in prison, with a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison, according to the Department of Justice.

Meek’s charges relate to a February 2020 visit to South Carolina where the 53-year-old Arlington resident used an unidentified online messaging platform on his personal iPhone to send and receive both images and videos that depicted minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct in addition to discussing his sexual interest in children. He brought the phone containing this material back with him on his return to Virginia.

“Some of the images and videos depicted prepubescent minors and minors under the age of 12, including an infant being raped,” according to the Department of Justice.

Meek was taken into custody in January following an investigation led by the FBI Washington Field Office’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. They were responding to a March 2021 tip from Dropbox to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which alleged that child pornography had been uploaded to an account with a username and IP addresses associated with Meek on March 10.

The FBI obtained a search warrant for the former national security news producer’s Virginia home before searching it April 27, 2022, and seizing several devices. That included a personal phone and external hard drive, which allegedly contain evidence related to his initial charge.

In March, Meek was indited on three counts, including transportation, distribution and possession of child porn. Meek pled guilty to transportation and possession only, according to The Daily Beast, with his plea agreement dismissing the distribution count.