Trans-identifying former state lawmaker sentenced to 33 years for child sex crimes, asked if God would disapprove

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Monday, June 22, 2026

A former New Hampshire state representative who identifies as transgender was sentenced to more than 33 years in prison last week after pleading guilty to three counts of aiding and abetting the sexual exploitation of children.

Stacie-Marie (Barry) Laughton, 42, who became the first trans-identifying state lawmaker when he was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in November 2012, was sentenced in Massachusetts last Thursday.

Laughton was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2023 and pleaded guilty last November to receiving nude photographs of young children at the Creative Minds daycare in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Laughton reportedly goaded 40-year-old Lindsay Groves, his former intimate partner who worked at the daycare, into taking illicit photos of the children during bathroom breaks and diaper changes. Forensic review of Grove's and Laughton's cellphones discovered more than 10,000 text messages they exchanged over a month in 2023, which included explicit photos of the children at the daycare, according to the DOJ.

At least four of the children appeared to be approximately 3 to 5 years old, according to prosecutors.

Groves previously pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual exploitation of children and one count of distribution of child pornography, and was sentenced to 22 years in prison earlier this month, local ABC affiliate WCVB reports.

According to the explicit charging document, Laughton, who is also a self-ordained minister, questioned in texts with Groves if God would be opposed to their sexual activity involving children. He noted some believe "sex with kids is a bad thing and God never addresses sex with children in the Bible and God never really condemns say different sexual lifestyles but what do you think?"

"Do you think we still have a place in heaven? Do you think God would still be OK with me being a minister and also, I was being bad," Laughton texted, to which Groves replied: "Yes god is ok with it and we will still go to heaven and he thinks you be a great minister."

Prosecutors wrote in Laughton's sentencing memo that their conduct was "abhorrent" and took advantage of children at an especially vulnerable stage of development, according to Boston.com.

"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. 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.

Prosecutors maintained that Laughton's text messages to Grove displayed a "borderline obsessive focus on sex," and that his "voice was, to put it mildly, the more prominent one in the ongoing conversation regarding the sexual exploitation of the victims in this case."

Laughton, who resigned before taking his seat in 2012 after it was revealed he served four months in prison for conspiracy to commit credit card fraud in 2008, was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives twice but resigned in 2022 after being arrested for stalking and harassment.

Prosecutors noted in the sentencing memorandum, which used feminine pronouns to refer to Laughton, that he has a criminal history and apparent "delusions of grandeur that are completely at odds with [his] demonstrated pattern of criminality, manipulation, and inability to take responsibility for [his] actions."

Jail officials confirmed to local outlet NH Journal in 2023 that Laughton was being "housed in a male unit."