Once hailed as a bold pioneer, the nation’s first transgender-identifying legislator is now going to prison for sex crimes against children. Born a biological male, former New Hampshire state legislator Stacie-Marie Laughton (D) was sentenced last week to 33 years in prison for three counts of sexual exploitation of children.

The transgender-identifying Democrat was charged in connection with convincing his accomplice and girlfriend, Lindsay Groves, to participate in a child sexual exploitation scheme, taking sexual and nude photos of children between the ages of three and five at the day care where she worked and sending them to Laughton, who would often describe his desire to sexually abuse the photographed children. Laughton pleaded guilty to the charges in federal court. Groves was sentenced to 22 years in connection with the scheme.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Laughton and Groves sent and received more than 10,000 sexually explicit text messages containing nude photos of children and discussions of the sexual abuse of those children. Prosecutors reported that Laughton is manipulative and abusive and had routinely manipulated, coerced, intimidated, and threatened Groves for years, prior to pressing her to participate in his child sexual exploitation scheme.

In 2012, Laughton became the first ever transgender-identifying legislator in the U.S. when elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2012. Less than one month after having been elected, Laughton resigned when it was revealed that he had previously been convicted of credit card fraud and sentenced to prison; he had not disclosed that fact to voters and was pressed by his fellow Democrats to resign, due to controversy over whether or not he was legally ineligible to hold office.

Two years later, police issued a warrant for Laughton’s arrest related to a false bomb threat phoned in to the Southern New Hampshire Medical Center. While he was initially charged with making a false report of explosives, the presiding judge reduced the charges to a misdemeanor and suspended Laughton’s six-month jail sentence. Laughton ran for a seat in the New Hampshire legislature again in 2020 and won but had to resign his position shortly afterwards when he was arrested yet again for stalking a woman and for repeatedly calling 911 in non-emergency situations.

According to court records, Groves is mentally challenged and was initially targeted by Laughton’s credit card fraud scheme. He proceeded to manipulate and coerce Groves and, eventually, sexually exploit her. Groves broke off her relationship with Laughton in 2023, prompting Laughton to launch a revenge campaign, smearing Groves as a pedophile and even reporting her to police. Laughton, however, failed to divulge and tried to hide his own involvement in the child sexual exploitation scheme.

“The conduct at issue here is abhorrent,” prosecutors wrote in Laughton’s sentencing memo. “These were children who were not yet fully potty trained, not old enough to even go to the bathroom themselves, and not fully verbal. This was not a ‘crime of opportunity’ in the sense in which we typically think of that concept,” the memo continued. “This was planned, it was strategized, and it was carried out for the sexual gratification of one or both defendants in this case.”

Prosecutors also reported that Laughton forwarded nude photos of children sent to him by Groves to other adults and had a “borderline obsessive focus on sex.” Prosecutors wrote, “The defendant’s criminal history reflects a theme: entitlement, aggression, and manipulation,” noting Laughton’s repeated efforts to hold public office. “These aspirations reveal delusions of grandeur that are completely at odds with [his] demonstrated pattern of criminality, manipulation, and inability to take responsibility for [his] actions,” they wrote. “[H]e must be held responsible for the damage that [h]e has done.”

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley in 2022 described Laughton and other “LGBTQIA+” legislators as the “backbone of the Granite State,” adding, “As one of the first openly gay representatives in New Hampshire, seeing the growth and the success of our state legislative LGBTQ Democratic Caucus is more heartwarming than I can put into words.”