Ex-ABC news producer arrested for child pornography

A former ABC News producer was arrested Tuesday on charges of transporting child pornography.

James Gordon Meek, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, had multiple devices confiscated from his home by the FBI last April, the Justice Department said in a statement. According to court documents, they contained images of children engaged in sexually explicit acts.

Authorities also found several chat conversations with users who expressed excitement about child sexual abuse.

The Justice Department said that in two of those conversations, a username allegedly associated with Meek received and disseminated child sexual abuse material through an internet-based messaging platform.

Meek was investigated after the government received a tip from Dropbox, the file-hosting platform, in 2021. Dropbox found five videos showing child pornography in an account in Meek’s name, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent investigating the case.

If convicted, Meek faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years.

Meek, 53, left ABC News on April 27, the day the FBI searched his home. His name was also removed from a book he co-authored, published by Simon & Schuster last summer, on Operation Pineapple Express, a secret mission in which a group of US military veterans rescued hundreds of Allied forces from Afghanistan.

An ABC News representative did not comment on Meek’s arrest.

Meek has specialized in national security reporting since the late 1990s. He joined ABC News in 2013 after serving two years as a senior counter-terrorism adviser and investigator for the House Committee on Homeland Security.

The Child Exploitation and Obscenity Division of the CID and Deputy US Atty. Zoe Bedell for the Eastern District of Virginia is following the case.