Federal authorities said Wednesday that former ABC News journalist James Gordon Meek was arrested and charged with possessing child pornography.
Meek, a 53-year-old Arlington, Virginia resident, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with transportation of child pornography, according to officials.
According to authorities, if convicted, Meek could face a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of twenty years in prison.
Meek abruptly resigned from ABC last year following an April raid on his home.
The investigation began in March 2021, when Dropbox filed a tip with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, claiming a user uploaded videos using its service that “were later confirmed by law enforcement to contain child pornography,” according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court.
According to the complaint, investigators tracked the account, which had the user name “James Meek,” to the suspect’s home in Arlington.
“Meek’s devices allegedly contained images depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, as well as multiple chat conversations with users engaged in sexually explicit conversations where the participants expressed enthusiasm for the sexual abuse of children,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Meek allegedly used social media platforms to chat online with minors, convincing them to send him explicit images of themselves, according to authorities.
Investigators recovered an external hard drive of the suspect with “58 images and videos of child pornography” and an iPhone 6 in Meek’s bedroom with “approximately 34 images and videos of suspected child pornography,” according to the complaint.
Meek or a representative for him could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon despite having several publicly listed phone numbers.
