Former ABC journalist James Gordon Meek, 53, was sentenced to six years in jail Friday for "transportation and possession of child sexual abuse material,” to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said.
“According to court documents, while visiting South Carolina in February 2020, James Gordon Meek, 53, 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,” a press release from the office said.
“Some of the images and videos depicted prepubescent minors and minors under the age of 12, including an infant being raped,” the press release continued. “Meek brought the iPhone containing the child sexual abuse material back with him when he returned to Virginia. Additionally, Meek possessed multiple electronic devices containing images and videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.”
The ABC website said that Meeks “is an award-winning investigative journalist and former Senior Counterterrorism Advisor and Investigator for the House Committee on Homeland Security” who “covered the rise of Al Qaeda since 1998, from the Millennium Plot to reporting from the ground outside the Pentagon after a hijacked plane hit it on Sept. 11, 2001, and on combat patrols with Special Operators and U.S. infantrymen in Afghanistan.”
Meeks pleaded guilty in July to one count of possessing and transporting child sexual abuse images. If he had been fully prosecuted, he could have faced 20 years.
Prosecutors were seeking a sentence of 12 1/2 to just under 16 years.
More than 100 sexual images were found on Meek's computer and iPhone, and he sent images in messages with others, in which he also expressed enthusiasm for having sex with minor children.
“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,” Meek said in court at the time of his guilty plea.
The investigation into Meeks began in 2021, and investigators found sexual images of children on his devices dating as far back as 2014.
It was found that Meeks sent and received child sexual images during a visit to South Carolina in 2020, and he brought the images back to Virgina when he returned.
Some of the texts between Meeks and other users found on his phone were graphic and violent.
Even so, Meeks was able to escape the worst of his punishment with the guilty plea.
Judge Claude Hilton said that the sentence reflects that “that Mr. Meek’s worst moments do not define him.”
Meeks began as a producer with ABC in 2013. He resigned last year when news of the investigation broke.
