Former New Hampshire Lawmaker Sentenced for Child Exploitation
Stacie Marie Laughton, a former state representative in New Hampshire, has been sentenced to 33 years in federal prison due to involvement in a child exploitation case related to a daycare center in Massachusetts. This sentence comes after Laughton’s guilty plea to three counts of sexual exploitation of children.
Identifying as a transgender woman, Laughton is a biological male.
Federal prosecutors detailed a disturbing scheme where Laughton, collaborating with a former partner, abused a position of trust to create and distribute child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The investigation began with Lindsay Groves, Laughton’s former partner from Hudson, New Hampshire, who worked at the Creative Minds Early Learning Center in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts. Court documents reveal that between May 2022 and June 2023, Groves misused her access to capture inappropriate photographs of children, aged 3 to 5, during bathroom breaks and diaper changes before naptime.
Groves then sent these illicit images to Laughton through text messages to compile a collection of CSAM.
Authorities found over 10,000 text messages exchanged between Laughton and Groves over just one month in 2023. These messages contained explicit discussions about the photographs, along with coordination for the exploitation of the children in Groves’ care.
Groves has already received a 22-year prison sentence for her significant role in the creation of this material.
Laughton, a Nashua Democrat, made history in 2012 as the first openly transgender individual elected to a U.S. state legislature. His political career has been troubled, leading to multiple resignations from the New Hampshire House of Representatives due to various legal issues, including previous convictions for credit card fraud, falsifying evidence, and a bomb threat incident in 2015. His most recent resignation occurred in December 2022, just before his federal arrest linked to the daycare case.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts prosecuted this case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide DOJ initiative that aims to combat child exploitation and rescue victims.
