New Hampshire’s first elected transgender-identifying state House member, Democrat Stacie Marie Laughton of Nashua, won’t have a happy Halloween this year.
Laughton, 41, born Barry Laughton, is set to appear in the United States District Court in Boston on Friday for a change of plea hearing in the child sex abuse image case that’s had him locked up for more than two years.
The Friday court date will likely see Laughton plead guilty to at least one of the three serious felony indictments against him.
The Halloween plea hearing comes weeks after his accomplice and lover, Lindsay Groves, 40, pleaded guilty for her role in the couple’s sick scheme. Groves used her position at a Massachusetts daycare to take explicit photos of the children she was supposed to be watching. Some of the victims were as young as three. Those photos were then shared via text message between the couple, who discussed raping children and hiding their crimes from the parents in thousands of grotesque notes.
Court records give a hint of the horrific Groves and Laughton Laughton relationship. In one text message, Laughton said there is nothing wrong with sexually abusing children.
“Oh, I know, but I just don’t wanna get in trouble. I mean, I want to do what we want to do because we like it and we approve of it, but others think this is wrong. Lots of parents don’t like people touching their kids, and it is against the law …” Laughton wrote in one exchange.
In another message, Laughton seems to admit to raping a child with Groves.
“I was asking because I know we’ve had some back-and-forth, and I know we initially said we do nothing with kids ever again, and you said you were afraid that if we had kids if they would go back and tell the parents the same with the kids you work with,” Laughton texted to Groves.
Earlier this month, Groves pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual exploitation of children and one count of distribution of child pornography. Each count of sexual exploitation of a child carries a possible 15 to 30 years prison sentence. Groves could get another 20 years for the distribution of child pornography charge. Groves has a sentencing hearing set for February.
Laughton is supposed to go on trial next week on three felony charges of the sexual exploitation of children. If the case does go to a jury, Groves would likely be a prosecution witness under her plea deal.
Groves took the plea deal after failing in her quest to be deemed too incompetent to stand trial. Groves and her legal team fought for more than a year to get her diagnosed as too mentally impaired to understand the charges or help in her own defense. But United States District Court Judge Dennis Saylor rejected that argument after hearing from defense and prosecution mental health experts. While Groves is mentally and emotionally handicapped, she knows what she is doing, Saylor ruled.
“In short, (Groves) has repeatedly shown that despite her many limitations, she is capable of ordered thinking and rational communication, and that she has the ability to navigate reasonably complex situations, including obtaining higher education and holding employment for extended periods. She understands the essential nature and potential consequences of the alleged crime, and can provide meaningful assistance to her defense,” Saylor wrote.
Though Laughton was accepted by the New Hampshire Democratic Party as transgendered when he ran for office — state party chair Ray Buckley celebrated him as part of “the backbone of New Hampshire” — he does not seem to be living as a female in any other aspect of his life. Away from his political persona as a transgender woman, Laughton was married for many years to biological woman Lisa Laughton, his alleged co-conspirator in a 2008 fraud case. Laughton additionally conducted a long-term sexual relationship with Groves, also a biological woman.
The criminal justice system seems to agree with the gender Laughton maintains in his private life. The Federal Bureau of Prisons lists Laughton as a male who was last in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., as of this month. He was also kept with other men inside Valley Street Jail immediately after the June 2023 arrest.
