A top producer for Jake Tapper has been arrested as part of a criminal investigation into allegations of misconduct involving ‘juvenile victims,’ just weeks after another CNN producer, for Chris Cuomo was fired over similar allegations.
Rick Saleeby, a former producer for Jake Tapper’s The Lead, resigned from the network after his arrest on December 18.
Fairfax County, Virginia police have launched a probe into ‘serious allegations involving potential juvenile victims’ and that ‘detectives assigned to the Child Exploitation Squad of the Major Crimes Bureau are leading this investigation.
In a video posted by far-right conservative group Project Veritas, a man the group says is Saleeby was recorded describing sexual fantasies about young girls.
On Tuesday, Saleeby appeared at a Fairfax County court where members from Project Veritas confronted him, however they received no comment from him or his attorney, according to the Denver Gazette.
Not much information was available regarding Saleeby or his arrest as of Thursday.
‘Detectives assigned to the Child Exploitation Squad of the Major Crimes Bureau are leading the investigation,’ police said of Saleeby.
‘While we will eventually be transparent about our findings, safeguarding the personal privacy and safety of victims and witnesses as well as maintaining the integrity of our criminal investigation are of paramount importance.’
‘At this time, we are not in a position to provide additional detail on the scope or nature of this investigation,’ the statement added.
Former CNN producer John Griffin, left, of Stamford, and former senior staffer on Jake Tapper’s show Rick Saleeby, right
It comes just a week after another senior CNN producer, John Griffin, was fired after being arrested on December 10 for sex crimes involving children.
Griffin was charged with attempting to persuade minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity after a year-long investigation where he was accused of flying a woman and a 9-year-old girl, described as her adoptive daughter, to train the girl in ‘sexual subservience.’
The investigation into Saleeby was allegedly prompted by reporting by Project Veritas.
‘While we will eventually be transparent about our findings, safeguarding the personal privacy and safety of victims and witnesses as well as maintaining the integrity of our criminal investigation are of paramount importance,’ a spokesman for Fairfax County Police said in a statement.
The Fairfax County Police Department confirmed that it had been in communication with CNN, as well as Saleeby’s reported victims.
‘The person in question no longer works for CNN’ and resigned earlier this month, a spokesman for CNN said in a statement.
Jake Tapper’s ‘The Lead,’ pictured, the CNN program where former producer Rick Saleeby worked before he was forced to resign from the network earlier this month
While Saleeby was given the opportunity to resign from the network, Griffin was fired immediately following his arrest on charges of enticing minors for sex.
Griffin was charged by a grand jury in Vermont ‘with three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity.’
The 42-year-old Stamford resident allegedly offered a Nevada woman, identified as 48-year-old Heather Carriker, of Henderson, $30,000 for a ‘mother daughter weekend with me,’ before revealing to authorities that he was ‘ashamed’ after being taken into custody for allegedly abusing a nine-year-old girl and enticing other minors.
‘According to the indictment, from April to July of 2020, Griffin utilized the messaging applications Kik and Google Hangouts to communicate with people purporting to be parents of minor daughters, conveying to them, among other ideas, that a “woman is a woman regardless of her age,” and that women should be sexually subservient and inferior to men,’ the US Attorney’s Office in Vermont wrote in a statement.
John Griffin, left, was a producer for Chris Cuomo, right, before Cuomo landed his own primetime show in 2018
Chris Cuomo, left, and Griffin, right at CNN before the two left the network in disgrace
‘On these communication platforms, Griffin sought to persuade parents to allow him to train their daughters to be sexually submissive. In June of 2020, Griffin advised a mother of 9- and 13-year-old daughters that the mother’s responsibility was to see that her older daughter was “trained properly.”‘
‘Griffin later transferred over $3,000 to the mother for plane tickets so the mother and her 9-year-old daughter could fly from Nevada to Boston’s Logan airport.’
‘The mother and child flew to Boston in July of 2020, where Griffin picked them up in his Tesla and drove them to his Ludlow house. At the house, the daughter was directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity,’ the statement read.
In April 2020, Griffin reportedly attempted to entice two other minors for sex, after he ‘proposed to engage in a “virtual training session” over a video chat that would include him instructing the mother and her 14-year-old daughter to remove their clothing and touch each other at his direction,’ according to the US Attorney’s Office in Vermont.
Several months later in June 2020, authorities said Griffin ‘proposed to a purported mother of a 16-year-old daughter that she take a “little mother-daughter trip” to Griffin’s Ludlow ski house for sexual training involving the child.’
According to his former employer, CNN was completely unaware of Griffin’s actions prior to his arrest.
‘Prior to his arrest and indictment, we had no knowledge about the case,’ a CNN spokesman told Fox News.
Griffin had previously worked alongside another embattled former CNN employee, Chris Cuomo, before Cuomo landed his own primetime show in 2018.
He was a senior producer for CNN’s morning program ‘New Day’ before his arrest and subsequent termination from the network.