Pulitzer Prize-Winning Cartoonist Arrested for Possessing Child Sex Abuse Videos
Darrin Bell, a 49-year-old cartoonist, was taken into custody on Wednesday in California for allegedly possessing 134 child sex abuse videos. The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office arrested Bell after detectives searched his home and found the AI-generated child sex abuse videos following a tip-off.
This is the first arrest by Sacramento authorities for possession of AI-generated sex abuse material. The arrest comes after a new law was introduced in California earlier this month criminalizing AI-generated sex abuse material.
Bell, who has won several awards for his work, including the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, was booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail and is being held on $1 million bail. He is scheduled to appear in court on January 17.
Bell’s cartoons address issues affecting disenfranchised communities and touch on civil rights, politics, and pop culture. His work has been featured in several prominent publications, including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Oakland Tribune.
Bell has been a cartoonist since 1995 and has freelanced for several major newspapers. He launched a comic strip called “Candorville” in 2003 and began syndicating his editorial cartoons in 2013.
Bell lives with his wife and four children in California.