Meek has been indicted on three child phonography counts and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted at trial
Meek, 53, is expected to change his plea to guilty at an appearance in a federal courtroom in Virginia on Friday.
The move to change his plea comes after his attorney filed a motion in June to delay his July trial, The Daily Beast reported.
The filing argued a delay would allow Meek's team and prosecutors to 'engage in discussions regarding the possible resolution of the case.'
A plea deal could allow Meek to receive a shorter sentence than the minimum five years and maximum 20 years he would have faced if convicted at trial.
The disgraced producer, 53, was indicted on three child pornography counts in April, including the possession and distribution of images depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
After an FBI raid at the Emmy Award-winning producer's Virginia home in April 2022, evidence was discovered allegedly showing that Meek sent explicit images of himself to minors, impersonated an underage girl in order to engage with minors online and partook in conversations where participants expressed desire to abuse children, federal prosecutors said.
Meek's lawyer, Eugene Gorokhov, is now seeking a conditional plea that would allow his client to withdraw a guilty or no contest plea if an appeals court later rules in his favor or the evidence in the case changes.
The defense attorney alleged in pre-trial motions that the FBI raid on Meek's Arlington property illegally obtained evidence.
Although these arguments were dismissed by the judge, any later appeal may bring those allegations back into focus.
The former producer initially pleaded not guilty in the case, but court records indicate he plans to change that plea during Friday's hearing.
Meek is currently in federal custody awaiting trial after a judge revoked his bail and declared he posed a risk to the community.
Meek's alleged predatory behavior was first exposed when Dropbox alerted authorities to child porn stored in his account in March 2021, the New York Post reported.
In the April 27, 2022, raid agents seized a laptop, external hard drive and multiple iPhones that reportedly contained child porn.
In the wake of the search, Meek abruptly resigned from the network and disappeared from public view.
Following the raid, the department obtained a search warrant for Meek's iCloud account on November 14.
They allegedly contained backups of two of his devices and included a screenshot of one of the explicit discussions. Investigators also uncovered an Apple laptop that contained 'approximately 90 images and videos of child pornography.'
Snapchat and Instagram accounts were also uncovered that allegedly contained conversations and images of unidentified females alleged to be minors.
Meek was arrested the following January and formally arraigned in April.
Federal investigators unsealed a series of letters in April in which federal investigators and attorneys describe how Meek and others had 'pressured' a 16-year-old girl to sext them, despite the minor sharing her age with Meek, the Daily Beast reported.
Before his downfall, Meek had built up a reputation for trailblazing journalism, which had exposed shocking military cover-ups, friendly fire deaths, and foiled terror plots.
Reader Comments
James Meek, the journalist who knew too much about the war in Ukraine
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Rolling Stone magazine published an article on the disappearance of ABC journalist James Gordon Meek at the end of April [1]. This case had not been reported on so far.
Meek had served as Senior Counterterrorism Advisor to the House Homeland Security Committee. He seems to have had a double professional life as a journalist and an intelligence agent. In any case, he was well introduced into this circle at a very high level. When he went missing, he was writing a book on Operation Pineapple Express that unfolded during the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul [2] .
FYI he exposed the Army's LIES with respect to Green Beret casualties in Africa.
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James discusses the documentary 3212 Un-redacted. He shares details from his reporting of the Army set-up of four elite U.S. Special Forces soldiers in Africa.
The Tongo Tongo ambush or the Niger ambush occurred on 4 October 2017
Meanwhile petting, sniff em Bribem continues to wander like the energizer bunny.