Former New Hampshire state Representative Stacie Laughton, a Democrat and a transgender individual, was convicted in federal court in Boston, MA, on charges related to a major child exploitation case in which both Laughton and Laughton’s former partner, Lindsay Groves, were involved. Groves admitted guilt in October, and Laughton pleaded guilty in federal court.
For reference, Laughton is a former legislator who served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives over the course of 2020 to 2022. During that time, Laughton represented District 31 in Hillsborough County. Before that, however, Laughton was elected to the New Hampshire House in 2012 to represent New Hampshire’s Ward 4. However, Laughton had to resign over the surfacing over a past criminal conviction.
Laughton’s claim to fame is being not only the first openly transgender individual to be elected official in the state of New Hampshire, but the first such openly transgender individual to be elected to any state legislature anywhere in the United States of America.
In any case, according to reports of the case that have emerged, Groves admitted to taking extremely inappropriate, often explicit, photos of the young children at the day care where she worked and sending those illegal pictures to Laughton. The investigators who had to look into the case discovered that four such photos were sent, with the children in them being between the ages of three and five.
Yet worse, investigators revealed that Laughton had not just been sent the pictures, but had asked Groves for the collection of illegal, horrible photos. The two individuals then exchanged, investigators revealed, thousands upon thousands of text messages about the photographs.
As could be expected, conservative accounts on X took the news and ran with it. For example, famous investigative journalist Andy Ngo added more details on Laughton’s criminal past, saying, “Stacie Marie Laughton, who was arrested for alleged child s*x crimes in New Hampshire, was elected multiple times as a state lawmaker by Democrat voters in the Granite state. In December 2022, Laughton resigned after being arrested for allegedly stalking a woman. Laughton has a long criminal history that includes threatening to bomb a local hospital.”
Watch the local media report on the incident here:
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Additionally, the Libs of TikTok account, for example, posted, “BREAKING: New Hampshire’s first transgender elected Rep. Stacie Laughton, pleaded guilty to child exploitation charges. He reportly asked his partner who worked in a daycare to send him n*de photos of kids. Eric Swalwell campaigned with him.”
In another post, Libs of TikTok again called out Swalwell for campaigning with Laughton and slammed Beto O’Rourke for the same thing, writing, “.@BetoORourke and @ericswalwell campaigned with Stacie Laughton, the transgender New Hampshire State Rep who just pleaded guilty to child exploitation charges after reportedly asking his partner who worked at a daycare to send him n*de pictures of kids”
Similarly, Oli London, who is often involved in calling out this sort of news and issue, wrote, “New Hampshire’s first Transgender State Representative pleads guilty to child exploitation charges. Stacie Laughton, a man who identifies as a ‘woman’, has pled guilty in a federal court to charges related to the possession of exploitation images of children at a day care.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video