The Sacramento Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Detectives (ICAC) has arrested 49-year-old Darrin Bell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
The ICAC, a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office division in Sacramento, California, published a statement on social media platform X on Thursday stating that it arrested Bell on Wednesday morning after “a residential search at Bell’s home.”
The ICAC said it had received a tip about Bell from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alleging the uploading of child sex abuse material (CSAM), also known as child pornography.
The tip directed law enforcement to 18 files containing CSAM. Upon investigation, the ICAC discovered 134 child sex abuse videos linked to the same account as the 18 files, an account “owned and controlled” by Bell, the ICAC said.
In 2019, Bell won the Pulitzer for his editorial cartooning and was celebrated by the board for highlighting “issues affecting the disenfranchised communities, calling out lies, hypocrisy and fraud in the political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration.”
His cartoons—including one depicting presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 groping the Statue of Liberty—have appeared in syndication in The Washington Post and numerous other publications.
In the search of his home, investigators said they found evidence connected with the case, “as well as computer-generated/AI CSAM.”
“Bell was subsequently arrested and booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail for possession of CSAM,” the ICAC said. “He is currently in custody being held on $1 million bail and is scheduled to appear in court on January 17.”
The ICAC said it was the department’s first arrest for possession of computer-generated/AI CSAM.
On Jan. 1, legislation in California went into effect criminalizing the “production, development, duplication, distribution, or possession” of computer-generated children under 18 “engaging in or simulating sexual conduct, as defined.”
“Research has shown a correlation between the consumption of CSAM and an increased risk of individuals engaging in hands-on sexual offenses against minors,” the legislation said.
CSAM possession “normalizes and validates” the abuse of children, the legislation said.
AI-generated CSAM “is inherently harmful to children” because the AI-learning models train on a database “containing thousands of depictions of known CSAM victims,” which revictimizes real children by using their likeness to create images that remain on the internet, according to the new law.
“The threat posed by AI-generated CSAM is real now and is emerging quickly as a serious impediment to protecting our children,” the legislation said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
