The first transgender person to ever be elected as a state representative in the United States has been arrested on child pornography charges.
Stacie-Marie Laughton, 39, was arrested on Thursday by police in Nashua, New Hampshire on four counts of the distribution of child sexual abuse materials. Laughton had reportedly received naked images of children aged between three and five years old. The images were allegedly snapped by an ex-partner of Laughton’s who worked at the Creative Minds Early Learning Center in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts.
Sergeant John Cinelli of the Nashua Police Department said that they had started looking into charging him on Tuesday.
“[Police] spoke with reporting parties that indicated Laughton distributed sexually explicit images of children,” Cinelli said. “Detectives from the special investigations division were assigned to further the investigation. They applied for and were granted a warrant for Laughton’s arrest.”
Laughton had first come to widespread notoriety in 2012 when he was elected as a Democrat state representative in New Hampshire, becoming the first openly transgender person to do so in the whole country. However, he was prevented from taking his seat due to still being on probation from a 2008 felony conviction for credit card and identity fraud.
Since 2012, he has faced a number of other criminal charges.
Laughton was arrested again in 2015 for making a bomb threat against the Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, and again in 2021 for the egregious misuse of New Hampshire’s 911 texting system. Laughton denied sending the texts, claiming some unknown individual was “spoofing” his number.
Despite being on bail for his 2021 charges, Laughton was once again elected as a state representative last year for a second term. However, less than one month after winning the seat, he was pressured to resign after it became known that he had been arrested for violating a protective order against a woman he allegedly stalked.
Laughton is currently in jail after waiving arraignment for the child pornography charges. He is reportedly being ordered to remain in custody because he poses a danger to himself or others.
Earlier this year, Laughton was ordained as a Minister online, delivering sermons to YouTube and charging $50 for marriages and baptisms, among other services. “I pride myself on being a member of the LGBT community and I believe all love is valuable and all people deserve a minister who cares about them deeply and doesn’t judge who they are or their backgrounds,” he wrote in his online biography.
