The first transgender person to be elected to a position in any state’s legislature has been arrested on child porn charges months after a previous arrest for allegedly stalking a woman in another state.
Former New Hampshire state representative Stacie Marie Laughton, born a man named Barry Charles Laughton, Jr., is a Democratic politician who The Daily Wire notes “previously resigned twice” from a seat in the New Hampshire state house. Laughton now faces four counts of distributing sexually explicit images of children.
The arrest apparently stemmed from a July 20 incident that saw police in Nashua respond to “a local facility for a juvenile matter,” according to the New Hampshire Union Leader. Officers spoke to individuals “who indicated Laughton alleged distributed sexually explicit images of children,” the outlet said, quoting police:
Detectives from the Special Investigations Division applied for and were granted a warrant for Laughton’s arrest. She was arrested Thursday with distribution of child sexual abuse images. She was also charged with three additional counts of distribution of child sexual abuse images, Nashua police said.
Laughton was held on preventative detention, and is scheduled to be arraigned at Hillsborough Superior Court-South on Friday.
Patch.com notes that details surrounding the arrest remain vague, but Laughton was initially charged with one count but three more were shortly added.
Stacie Marie Laughton is the first trans state representative in the US
Laughton was just arrested for distributing images of child sex abuse pic.twitter.com/Mvt0RMYjWp
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 23, 2023
That website reports that police reported “another child pornography case on Thursday involving a day care center” but noted that it’s “unknown if the cases were related”:
Lindsay Groves, 38, of Hudson, was charged with one count of sexual exploitation of children and one count of distribution of child pornography in Boston, Massachusetts. She worked at Creative Minds in Tyngsborough, MA. Investigators accused Groves of taking nude images of children at the daycare and sending the photos to an individual with whom she was previously in an intimate relationship between May 2022 and June.
“Specifically,” an alert stated, “Groves allegedly used natural bathroom breaks for the children (routine diaper/pull-up changes prior to ‘naptime’) to take multiple photos of the prepubescent children in a private bathroom and then sent the photos to the individual via text message.”
Laughton was became the first transgender person elected to office in November of 2012, but was never seated after a 2008 credit card felony went public. Three years later, in 2015, Laughton was sentenced to six months in jail for “reporting a bomb threat to a hospital” according to The Daily Wire, which added that Laughton was arrested again in 2021 for “giving police false information.”
BREAKING: The first openly transgender elected representative in the US has been arrested on four counts of distributing child sexual abuse materials.
Stacie-Marie Laughton had been elected to the New Hampshire House on three separate occasions.https://t.co/pJUMmYBWk9
— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) June 23, 2023
The transgender Democrat won another election in November of 2022, but stepped down in December “after accusations of stalking.” Laughton was arrested for stalking twice in 2022, including an incident “just months before the election.”
Apparently Laughton announced a plan to leave politics in a video on Facebook, per the Daily Wire.
“I’m alive, I’m safe, I’m well,” said Laughton in the video. “I’m not suicidal, and just trying to get by every day with what I’ve been dealt. I don’t know what the future holds but I do know this — there’s a lot of good opportunities out there for me to serve, and a lot of good opportunities for me to still stay connected with everyone and I plan to do that.”
