Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Henderson woman flew daughter, 9, across country for sex with CNN producer, police say

A Henderson woman was arrested last year for allegedly flying her 9-year-old daughter to Boston to engage in sexual activity with a longtime CNN producer who was indicted by a federal grand jury earlier this month, according to Henderson Police.

Heather Carriker, 48, was arrested Aug. 21, 2020, and booked at the Henderson Detention Center on two counts of child abuse, two counts of sexual assault against a child under 14, and one count of lewdness with a minor, Henderson Police spokesman Alan Olvera said. Carriker’s case is currently in the Henderson Justice Court and has yet to be adjudicated.

The arrest is related to a case involving John Griffin, 44, of Stamford, Conn., who was arrested Dec. 10 on three counts of facilitating interstate commerce to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity. Griffin has been a producer for CNN for about eight years and has been suspended pending an investigation, the network said.

Griffin allegedly used the online messaging applications Kik and Google Hangouts to communicate with people purporting to be parents of minor daughters, telling them, among other ideas, that women are “sexually subservient and inferior to men,” according to a release from the U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont. On these platforms, Griffin sought to persuade parents to train their daughters to be “sexually submissive.”

In June 2020, Griffin advised Carriker it was the mother’s responsibility to see her daughter was “trained properly,” and later transferred more than $3,000 to Carriker to purchase plane tickets, according to the release. Carriker and her daughter then flew to Boston, and Griffin drove them to his Ludlow, Mass., home, where the daughter was “directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity.”

The indictment also alleges that Griffin attempted to entice two other children over the internet to engage in sexual activity, according to the release. In April 2020, Griffin engaged in a “virtual training session” over a video chat in which he instructed a mother and her 14-year old daughter to remove their clothing and touch each other at his direction. In June 2020, Griffin urged the purported mother of a 16-year-old girl to take a “little mother-daughter trip” to his home for sexual training involving the child.

A search on the Henderson Justice Court’s online schedule did not yield any open cases involving Carriker. If convicted, Griffin faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum penalty of a life sentence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Acting U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ophardt commended Henderson Police and other agencies for assisting in the investigation.