TYNGSBORO — A woman who produced pornography of children at a Tyngsboro daycare for her partner — a former New Hampshire state representative — was sentenced to more than two decades in federal prison.
“Lindsay Groves was every parent’s worst nightmare: a predator hiding in plain sight, in the place they brought their children every morning so that they would be safe and happy while the parents were at work,” federal prosecutors Anne Paruti and Jessica Soto wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV sentenced Groves, of Hudson, New Hampshire, to 21 years and 10 months in federal prison on Thursday. Groves pleaded guilty last October to three counts of sexual exploitation of children and one count of distribution of child pornography. She will have to register as a sex offender.
Groves immediately filed notice she was appealing the sentence.
Her co-defendant, Stacie Marie Laughton, 41, of Nashua, N.H., a former New Hampshire State Representative, pleaded guilty last November to three counts of sexual exploitation of children and her sentencing was recently moved from June 4 to June 18.
Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 35 years in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release.
Prosecutors wrote that Groves, a teacher at the since-shuttered Creative Minds daycare in Tyngsboro, “took advantage of her access to children to feed the sexual desires of her then-girlfriend,” Laughton.
“In the midst of an ongoing text-based conversation where Groves and Laughton discussed their mutual sexual interest in the children and what they would like to do with the children, the defendant followed through on what they had discussed,” prosecutors wrote.
“She took them into the bathroom, where no one would see what she was doing, and she created graphic imagery of the children’s genitals with her cell phone. She then sent the photographs to Laughton, and the two used the images to fuel their sexually-motivated conversations,” prosecutors continued.
In all, the feds say Groves traded 2,500 text messages with Laughton and that these messages discussed child exploitation at length and included sexually explicit images of children in her care. Prosecutors say she used bathroom breaks and “naptime” routines as opportunities to record the children.
Excerpts from the pair’s text message conversations included in court documents are for the most part extremely explicit, including detailed descriptions of desired activity with the children pictured in the images.
Prosecutors summarized the messages sent over a five week period leading up to their arrest as demonstrating “an active relationship in which they discussed past sexual encounters, explicit descriptions of sex with each other and others, and indicia of their personal relationship. … The messages also included the discussion about and transfer of child pornography featuring Minors 1, 2, and 3, all of whom were at the time three-year-old students at the childcare facility.”
The gravity of the crimes was made apparent not just in the details provided in court documents but by how family members of children at the daycare reacted when the perverted duo appeared in court for their arraignments.
“I want to (expletive) kill that (expletive),” a tearful woman cried from the gallery at the close of the first hearing in federal court in Boston on June 28, 2023.
“You need to rot in jail!” the woman screamed as a group of people with her tried to calm her down.
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