Former Democrat state Rep. Barry Charles Laughton, the first openly transgender state representative, was arrested Thursday on multiple counts of possessing and distributing child pornography.

Barry, 39, now goes by the name Stacie and was arrested in conjunction with the arrest of Lindsay Groves, a former daycare employee at a center in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts. Groves took inappropriate pictures of the children in the daycare and then sent them on to Laughton. The two were said to be in a relationship with one another as well. According to news station WFXT-TV in Boston, Groves “took nude images of children at the daycare and sent the photos to Laughton, with whom she was previously in an intimate relationship, between May 2022 and June 2023,” According to Western Journal, the station also reported that U.S. attorney Joshua S. Levy said Groves took the pictures during bathroom breaks and diaper changes and then texted the photos to Laughton. WFXT reported saying Groves and Laughton had exchanged roughly 2,500 messages containing “explicit photographs that Groves had taken of children while employed at [the day care] – including at least four sexually explicit images of children who appear to be approximately three to five years old,” 

Sadly, Laughton has repeatedly broken the law and has repeatedly been voted to serve as an N.H. representative. Laughton was first elected in 2012, becoming the first transgender representative. However, shortly after, Laughton resigned when a 2008 felony that he was still serving a sentence for came to light.

In November 2022, Laughton was reelected to the New Hampshire House. In December, just one month later, he again resigned from his position following further trouble with the law. According to reports, Laughton was arrested on stalking charges. He posted his resignation on social media, saying he would run again in the future,

“As of today, I’m no longer a state representative, which is very disappointing, but I’m going to come back to it,” Laughton said in the video. “I will be attending mental health court and getting some counseling and trying to get my life back on track,” he continued saying, “I’m not perfect. Even in the future, I still won’t be perfect, but I will be a better version of myself and better able to handle situations that come my way. In two years, the next state election, I will run for state representative again.”