The nation’s first openly transgender lawmaker once asked her accomplice girlfriend if they would still get into heaven as they exchanged lewd photos of children as young as three.
Disgraced New Hampshire Rep. Stacie-Marie Laughton, who was born Barry Laughton, 41, was arrested in 2023 and was charged with aiding and abetting the sexual exploitation of children.
She pleaded guilty to the charges in federal court in Boston last week, and admitted to encouraging her then-girlfriend, Lindsay Groves, 40, to take nude photos of young children in her care at Creative Minds daycare in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, KRCR reports.
Prosecutors had laid out in court documents how Laughton and Groves sent each other 10,000 messages as they fantasized about sexually abusing the young children and shared the disgusting acts they wanted to perform on the children.
Among those text messages were at least four explicit photos of children between the ages of three and five that Groves took at the daycare, where she worked from May 2022 and June 2023.
Prosecutors said she ‘used natural bathroom breaks for the children,’ such as ‘routine diaper pull-up changes prior to naptime … to take multiple photos of the prepubescent children in a private bathroom.’
In another message, Laughton told Groves to touch a child’s genitals, so she took a photo and sent it to the lawmaker for ‘sexual gratification.’
But between these disgusting messages, Laughton expressed her fear she would not get into heaven.
Disgraced New Hampshire Rep. Stacie-Marie Laughton, who was born Barry Laughton, 41, has pleaded guilty to charges of aiding and abetting the sexual exploitation of children
She admitted to encouraging her then-girlfriend, Lindsay Groves, 40, to take nude photos of young children in her care
She wrote about her desire to become a church minister in a message to Groves on June 14, 2023 and asked her then-partner if she would still go to heaven.
‘Do you think God is OK with us being bad girls? Do you think we still have a place in heaven? Do you think God would still be OK with me being a minister?’ the lawmaker mused, according to court documents.
Groves then reassured her, saying: ‘Yeah God is OK with it and we still go to heaven and he still thinks you [sic] be a great minister.’
At another point, Laughton expressed her fears that they would be arrested.
‘I don’t wanna get caught if we do,’ she wrote to Groves on June 7 of that year.
‘Lots of parents don’t like people touching their kids and it is against the law,’ she noted.
Despite those reservations, prosecutors said Laughton continued to request access to the young children in Groves’s care – even once allegedly inquiring about having oral sex with a girl, only for Groves to respond: ‘She’s not even three yet,’ according to WMUR.
The pair’s heinous actions were eventually uncovered when Laughton sent the images to a third person, who turned them over to the Nashua Police Department, the New York Post reports.
‘I don’t like that I have these, but I wanted to show you the proof I am not a kid pervert,’ Laughton texted the individual, according to court documents.
In one text message, Laughton wrote about her desire to become a church minister in a message to Groves and asked her then-partner if she would still go to heaven
Laughton and Groves were arrested in June 2023 and have since pleaded guilty to their crimes
Prosecutors said Groves took nude photos of young children in her care at Creative Minds daycare in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts
Laughton and Groves’s relationship had been fraught for years before their criminal correspondence, New Hampshire Journal reports.
The politician had repeatedly tried to get Groves fired from her job at the daycare during their 2022 breakup, claiming Groves was the one who was a pedophile.
She even reported Groves to the police and used social media and radio programs to accuse her ex of pedophilia – but the accusations were deemed fake and wound up being at the center of the November 2022 stalking case against Laughton that landed her behind bars just one week after her election to represent Nashua in the state government.
It was not the first time she had been arrested, either.
Laughton had previous arrests for domestic violence/criminal mischief in 2002 and also had a sexual assault charge against a woman in 2003.
She was also convicted in 2008 of felony credit card fraud, which barred her from serving despite being elected to represent the Hillsborough 31 district as a Democrat in the state government in 2012.
Three years later, Laughton was also arrested for making a bomb threat against the Southern New Hampshire Medical Center and in 2021, she was once again apprehended for misusing the state’s 911 texting system.
The politician had repeatedly tried to get Groves fired from her job at the daycare during their 2022 breakup, claiming Groves was the one who was a pedophile
Laughton, a Democrat, is pictured here with former US Rep. Beto O’Rourke, in 2019
Laughton has blamed her past criminal behavior on mental illness and untreated conditions.
She expressed remorse and stated that their actions were completely out of character.
‘I have had a mental illness my whole life, and I guess this was my worst break with it. I was untreated for a long time, and I didn’t have medication,’ Laughton shared in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader after being arrested for making a bomb threat.
‘I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, and it was totally out of character for me. I have put a lot behind me, and I never thought I would do this in a million years.’
But the ex-politician and Groves – who entered into her own plea agreement last month, admitting to sending Laughton the explicit photos – now face between 15 to 30 years in prison, a fine up to $250,000 and a lifetime of supervised release.
They are due to be sentenced in federal court on Friday.
