Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Darrin Bell was arrested on suspicion of possessing child sex abuse videos, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
The sheriff’s office said it executed a search warrant Wednesday at Bell’s home and found 134 videos deemed child sex abuse material on an account linked to Bell.
The investigation began with a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that someone was uploading AI-generated child sex abuse material. Under a new California law, which went into effect Jan. 1, possession of AI-generated child sex abuse material is a criminal offense. The state’s laws had not previously accounted for AI-generated material.
Bell is being held on $1 million bail at the Sacramento County Main Jail and is scheduled to appear in court on Friday.
He won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 2019 as a freelancer “for beautiful and daring editorial cartoons that took on issues affecting disenfranchised communities, calling out lies, hypocrisy and fraud in the political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration,” according to the organization’s website.
Bell writes and draws the syndicated comic strips “Candorville” and “Rudy Park.”
