The nation’s first known transgender lawmaker has pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of children and has been sentenced to 33 years in prison.
Stacie Marie (Barry) Laughton, 42, was first elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2012. At the time, Laughton made headlines as America’s first transgender state lawmaker, but quickly resigned after a hidden fraud conviction was exposed.
Just a few years later, the Democrat politician was arrested for a bomb threat. Laughton reportedly told the New Hampshire Union Leader in 2015, “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.”
More recently, Laughton was reelected in 2022 to the New Hampshire House, but was then indicted by a federal grand jury in 2023 and pled guilty in 2025 to receiving pornographic photos of children aged 3-5 from an accomplice at the Creative Minds daycare in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts.
Prosecutors say Lindsey Groves, 40, who worked at the daycare, took part in this heinous crime. For over 14 months, Groves reportedly used routine bathroom breaks and diaper changes to take and send sexually explicit images of the children to her former partner, Laughton.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, a forensic review found over 10,000 text messages that discussed and transferred child pornographic photos sent between the two.
The court documents filed by prosecutors catalog explicit, sexual images and comments by Laughton and Groves, including a discussion of whether they believe God would be ok with their sexual crimes against vulnerable children. “God never really condemns, say, different sexual lifestyles, but what do you think?” Laughton messaged Groves. The two concluded that God would be ok with what they were doing.
Prosecutors characterize the pair’s actions as “abhorrent” and “strategized.”
“This was not a ‘crime of opportunity’ in the sense in which we typically think of that concept. This was planned, it was strategized, and it was carried out for the sexual gratification of one or both defendants in this case,” they said.
Groves was also prosecuted for taking and distributing the images. WCVB reports that Groves pled guilty to three counts of sexual exploitation of children and one count of distribution of child pornography. Groves was also sentenced this month to 22 years in prison.
