Posted on 01/16/2025 11:39:56 AM PST by Navy Patriot
A prominent California-based comic strip creator, cartoonist and author has been arrested on suspicion of possession and creating child pornography.
Darrin Lawrence Bell, 49, who won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, was arrested Wednesday morning at his south Sacramento home by Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office investigators.
Deputies served a search warrant Wednesday morning against Bell following an investigation by the Sacramento Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Detectives task force. Bell was booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail and remains held on $1 million bail. Bell was expected to be arraigned Friday afternoon in Sacramento Superior Court.
The Sheriff’s Office said it was the first arrest by the task force connected to AI-generated material, which was incorporated into existing child pornography law on Jan. 1. It was not known Thursday whether Bell would face federal charges, said Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Amar Gandhi.
Bell is best known for his comic strip “Candorville,” which features three childhood friends of color and their daily lives in the inner city. Bell, who is Black and Jewish...
(Excerpt) Read more at fresnobee.com ...
I wonder how "Bad Attitude Bell" will do in the big house?
AI generated child porn. I feel that AI is going to create a lot of grey areas that we haven’t had to deal with before. I thought the supreme court had already made a ruling concerning that, but I don’t dare do a google search to find out more.
That’s a big grey area. Is there technically a victim with AI-Generated porn, IF they show that actual real children were not a part of the model?
Sure if they actually used real Child Porn photos to populate the model, I can see that being an issue.
I hope he’s popular with the love starved inmates of the general population, if you get my drift.
can he be charged for child porn if it’s AI generated? If an AI is generating it, which AI platform? Should they be charged for distribution of child porn?
It may be victimless, but people who are attracted to this thing are eventually going to want the real thing. So I see no problem with criminalizing this, but who knows what else they can criminalize later on that doesn’t actually involve a victim?
I remember Bernie Ward on the radio. He was quite the rabble rouser when it came to liberal, boilerplate ideas. I think he was trained as a Jesuit. Just as with lawyers, many Jesuits become too pragmatic, too harsh in the name of fairness and equality. I disagreed with most of Bernie’s bloviations, but he was learned, and could be a compelling speaker. It was sad to see his celebrity star fall straight down, with the force of a meteor.
It wasn’t just AI generated imagery...he had videos too.
Darrin Lawrence Bell a never Trump did cartoons about Trump typical type.
That will do it. Real victims, real crime. He’s gone from a pervert to a criminal pervert. Lock him up and throw away the key…
yes, I saw that and he should be charged for as many counts as possible. My question is, if the remainder is generated and not real, is it a crime to possess it? With AI generated images or video, there is no physical person that is harmed, so is it a crime? This will become a problem as AI generated images gets better and better.
Any user of AI might be at risk of being charged with generating porn, even if they don’t.
“We know you logged to AI in at this time ...”
“This is when porn was generated”
“You were on the site, ... guilty”
Gawd...awful cartoonist......almost as bad as John Deering of the ARDEMGAZ. NO ONE is worse than him.
It’s CA. He’ll be lionized.
Yep, AI is gonna cause problems.
I believe there will be a BIG fight over that.
Maybe he’ll use the Pete Townshend defense, “I was doing research for my autobiography”. Of course, Bell isn’t the cultural icon that Townshend was, so that won’t work.
I think so too. still, even if unreal, he still in possession of child pornography.
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