A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist was arrested Wednesday and accused of possessing dozens of child sex abuse videos, police said.
A search warrant was served at the home of Darrin Bell, 49, on Wednesday, according to a Thursday statement on X from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. Bell possessed 134 videos deemed child sex abuse material, the sheriff’s office said.
The investigation began when detectives fielded a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about someone uploading 18 files of child sex abuse videos, the sheriff’s office said.
Bell is being charged under a new California law, which went into effect on Jan. 1, that criminalizes possessing AI-generated child sex abuse material, marking the first arrest under the law by detectives who focus on Internet crimes against children, according to the sheriff’s office.
Bell was being held on $1 million bail Thursday at the Sacramento County Main Jail. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday. It was unclear Thursday afternoon if Bell had retained an attorney.
A woman who identified herself as Bell’s wife told NBC News on Thursday afternoon, in a brief telephone interview, “Pray for me and my children.”
She declined further comment.
Bell was called a “well-known cartoonist, having been featured in several prominent publications” by the sheriff’s office.
Bell’s X account identifies him as a “Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, creator of the comic strip ‘Candorville,’ author of ‘The Talk.’”
Bell won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 2019 as a freelancer. He was recognized 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 awards’ website.
Bell was also the recipient of the 2015 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Editorial Cartooning, his biography on Amazon said. He is also well known for the comic strip “Rudy Park.”
Bell has four children and is a Los Angeles native, according to the biography.
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