Former ABC News national security investigative producer James Gordon Meek is pleading guilty to transportation and possession of child pornography. Meek is scheduled to have a sentencing hearing on Sept. 29, where he will face a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.
According to a press release from the DOJ, while visiting South Carolina in February 2020, the ex-ABC Newser “used an online messaging platform on his iPhone to send and receive images and videos depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and to discuss his sexual interest in children.” Meek then transported the iPhone containing the illegal material back to his home to Virginia.
The feds brought charges against Meek earlier this year, arresting him at his home on February 1, 2023. The arrest took place nine months after the FBI had raided his Arlington, Va., home. The search, which took place on April 27, 2022, was initiated via an investigative lead sent by Dropbox and ultimately received by the FBI Washington Field Office’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.
During that search, members of the task force seized multiple devices that allegedly contained evidence of the transportation of images of child sexual abuse. According to court documents, the images found in many of Meek’s devices depict children engaged in sexually explicit behavior.
Meek resigned from ABC News shortly after the search took place.
In October 2022, Rolling Stone reporter Tatiana Siegel wrote:
“In the raid’s aftermath, Meek has made himself scarce. None of his Siena Park neighbors with whom Rolling Stone spoke have seen him since, with his apartment appearing to be vacant. Siena Park management declined to confirm that their longtime tenant was gone, citing ‘privacy policies.’ Similarly, several ABC News colleagues — who are accustomed to unraveling mysteries and cracking investigative stories — tell Rolling Stone that they have no idea what happened to Meek. ‘He fell off the face of the Earth,’ says one. ‘And people asked, but no one knew the answer.’”
Meek spent nine years at ABC News, joining the organization in 2013 after working for the New York Daily News. During his tenure at ABC, Meek served as a senior investigator for the House Homeland Security Committee.
Meek produced an ABC News Presents documentary for Hulu named 3212 UN-REDACTED: An Ambush in Africa. The Pentagon’s Betrayal, which ended up being honored by the Headliner Awards for best documentary of the year. The documentary focuses on a 2017 mission in Niger, Africa, gone wrong and one that resulted in the deaths of 4 U.S. Special Forces soldiers. The 3212 is in reference to the Green Beret team, and the documentary claims that there is “evidence of a cover-up at the highest levels of the Army.”