A former producer with ABC News was sentenced to six years in prison in a child porn case, avoiding the maximum 20 years he faced after his arrest for sending, receiving, and possessing more than 100 images and videos depicting children being sexually abused.
James Gordon Meek, 53, was sentenced in a federal court on Friday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. He pleaded guilty in the case in July.
In court, Meek apologized, The Associated Press reported.
“To those whose victimization I have contributed to with each click online, I beg you to forgive me. I am sincerely sorry for all I have done so egregiously wrong, which has caused so much harm to you,” he said.
The investigation into Meek began in March 2021, when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received a tip regarding five videos of child pornography being uploaded by a Dropbox account user, states an affidavit of probable cause filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. That tip was forwarded to the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in Washington, D.C.
The username associated with the Dropbox user was “James Meek,” and the IP addresses in question were determined to be associated with Meek’s address in Arlington, Virginia, authorities say.
Investigators in April 2022 obtained and executed a search warrant on Meek’s residence, during which authorities seized an iPhone 8 with a phone number and SIM card officials said was associated with Meek’s Dropbox and Gmail accounts. Authorities say the device had been named “Bone Machine.”
The phone allegedly contained three conversations in which someone with the username “Pawny4” – who authorities believe to be Meek – was “engaging in sexually explicit conversations where the participants expressed enthusiasm for the sexual abuse of children.”
“In two of those conversations, Pawny4 received and distributed child pornography image and video files through Kik, an internet-based messaging platform,” the affidavit states.
Authorities say that in February 2020, Pawny4 and another user “exchanged child pornography and messaged on Kik about their mutual interest in the sexual exploitation of children.”
At one point in the exchange, Pawny4 asked, “Love kids?” The other user responded, “Yesss.”
Court records include graphic and violent texts.
Approximately 100 other images depicting “children engaged in sexually explicit conduct” were also recovered from the iPhone, the affidavit said.
A review of Meek’s external hard drive and other devices allegedly “resulted in significant evidence that Meek has engaged directly, and attempted to engage, with minors online on platforms and applications other than Snapchat,” the document states.
In one such exchange, Meek allegedly sought and received multiple explicit photographs from an unidentified minor female. Investigators say they spoke to the minor female who “confirmed that Meek and other men had approached her through Snapchat and had pressured her” to provide the photos.
In court filings, Meek’s lawyer blamed his client’s addiction to child pornography on the trauma he suffered as a national security correspondent reporting on war and torture, the Independent reported.
“It is notable that trauma has been found to lead to this type of emotional numbing, combined with an increased tendency towards impulsivity,” wrote lawyer Eugene Gorokhov.
Law&Crime’s Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
