Ex-ABC News producer blames child porn obsession on war and torture reporting

James Gordon Meek said the trauma of his exposure to the cruelty of warfare had taken a toll on his mental health

James Gordon Meek will be sentenced on Friday (AP)

Former ABC News producer James Gordon Meek’s lawyer has claimed that trauma suffered during his years of reporting on war and torture led to his addiction to child pornography.

Meek, 54, will be sentenced on Friday in a federal court in Virginia after he pled guilty in July to the illegal possession and transportion of vile images of children being sexually abused. 

His attorney Eugene Gorokhov argued in a court filing this week that Meek’s extensive exposure to the cruelty of the war on terror in the Middle East had taken a toll “in the form of his mental health”.

“It is notable that trauma has been found to lead to this type of emotional numbing, combined with an increased tendency towards impulsivity,” Mr Gorokhov wrote.

Prosecutors called on the judge to sentence the former national security correspondent to up to 15 years as they outlined how he hoarded and shared content “depicting sadistic and masochistic abuse of prepubescent children”.

“He sought out individuals and groups on the internet specifically for facilitating this conduct,” Zoe Bedell and Whitney Kramer wrote in a pre-sentence filing.

The prosecutors detailed how Meek joined a Telegram group chat where members posed as children to interact with underage victims.

“A significant sentence of imprisonment is warranted to deter the defendant and others from engaging in this conduct in the future,” the prosecutors said.

Meek, a former Emmy Award-winning news producer, was arrested in 2022 after federal agents raided his home in Arlington, Virginia, and seized phones and computers.

FBI agents founds dozens of child pornography images and videos dating back to at least 2014, an affidavit stated.

His lawyer said the sentencing guideline of 12.5 to 15 years was “excessive”, claiming that his clean record, remorse and guilty plea deserved a sentence of five years.

The divorced father of two adult daughters had lost “nearly everything”, Mr Gorokhov wrote.

Mr Gorokhov cited an interview Meek gave to the Glendale Community College student newspaper El Vaquero in 2017, where he spoke about the past four years of covering terrorism had on his “own emotional health and morale”.

“Man’s inhumanity to man finally met the smartphone in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, and exposure to the carnage and cruelty of warfare has increased exponentially in my work because it has become so easy to document and distribute globally. It is both a blessing and a curse,” Meek told the paper.

As part of a plea agreement in July, Meek admitted using an iPhone to swap child pornography, including a video showing the sexual abuse of an infant, during a chat session with two other individuals.

Meek was hired as an investigative producer for ABC News’ Washington bureau in 2013 after previously working for the New York Daily News.

He also served as senior counterterrorism adviser and investigator for the US House Committee on Homeland Security.