Does anyone remember the saga of James Meek? He was the subject of a Rolling Stone article that recounted a raid on his Virginia home in October of last year. Then Meek fell off the map. No one knew where he was. His abrupt disappearance had tongues wagging and fueled speculation about why he went dark. Meek was an investigative reporter for ABC News and produced the documentary 3212 Un-redacted. The documentary talked about the deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Nigeria and about a possible cover-up by the U.S. Army.
The Rolling Stone piece highlighted Meek’s experience covering military and national security issues along with a discussion Meeks was at one point having with ex-CIA agent Marc Polymeropoulos about the U.S. aiding Ukraine in its war against Russia. When Meeks went underground, people naturally began to ask questions and wondered if Meek had somehow uncovered something damning about the Biden administration or someone else. What did James Meek have, and why was he in hiding? Even Glenn Beck asked that question on his radio program. It was all very mysterious and practically invited people to come up with deep-state conspiracy theories.
Then Meek resurfaced at his mother’s home stating that he did not want to make things difficult for his colleagues. He also resigned from the network. The news cycle took over, and Meek disappeared again from the public eye, as the news moved on.
Now, we know why Meek went incognito and why the Feds raided his home in October. No, Meek was not a whistleblower. He was not about to blow the lid off of anything, and he was not in possession of state secrets. He was, however, in possession of child pornography.
Related: Former CNN Animal Pleads Guilty to ‘Child Sex Training’
According to a press release from the Department of Justice, the FBI received a tip from Dropbox, which provided enough information for the agency to execute a search of Meek’s residence. There, agents recovered several devices “that allegedly contained evidence of the transportation of images of child sexual abuse.” The press release also stated:
According to court documents, several of Meek’s devices allegedly contained images depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and multiple chat conversations with users engaged in sexually explicit conversations where the participants expressed enthusiasm for the sexual abuse of children. In two of those conversations, a username allegedly associated with Meek received and distributed child sexual abuse materials through an internet-based messaging platform.
Meek was arrested Tuesday night and charged with transportation of child pornography. If convicted, Meek faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum sentence of 20 years.
The affidavit is at the bottom of the press release, and I strongly suggest you not read it. I read many such affidavits when I was a reporter and was not ready for what I read. Portions of the affidavit are not just extremely graphic but are also sickening, depressing, and enraging. Meek had reached a level of depravity that frankly defies description.
Your first reaction may be to call for Meek’s head to be slowly separated from his body or for some other creative punishment. And that is completely understandable. But if you have kids, once you have vented, go find your child’s phone, tablet, laptop — whatever they use. Go through that thing file by file and application by application. If you have serious concerns, your local police department has officers trained in recovering data. Your child may be incensed, but it isn’t just your right as a parent to know where your child has been in cyberspace and with whom they have been talking. With monsters like James Meek swimming in the sewers of the internet, it is your responsibility.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member