The former representative, a male who uses the name Stacie Laughton, was first elected to the NH House of Representatives in 2012 in what was heralded as a landmark moment for the LGBTQ community, as he was the first transgender-identifying person to serve in a state legislature.
According to charging documents reviewed by The Maine Wire, Laughton was arrested along with his former partner, Lindsay Groves, in 2023 after law enforcement received a report that Laughton had shown sexually explicit images of small children to another person.
Documents revealed that, while Groves worked at a daycare and Laughton served as a state representative, the two sent over 10,000 messages discussing the sexual abuse of children at the daycare.
Laughton repeatedly encouraged Groves to take sexually explicit images of herself abusing children as young as five at the daycare, which Groves then sent to Laughton at his request.