Martin County - Thursday April 4, 2024: Martin County Sheriff detectives have arrested 51-year-old Daniel Clark Warren of Jensen Beach on accusations that he used an artificial intelligence (AI) program to create child pornography. It is the first time that such a charge has ever been brought against any suspect in Martin County.
At a news conference Wednesday MCSO Chief Deputy John Budensiek said Warren is accused of taking photographs of a girl in his neighborhood and then using AI to transform her pictures into pornographic images. “So regular photos switched over to child pornography," said Chief Deputy Budensiek. "Some egregious, egregious photos.”
Federal law prohibits using the picture of a real child to create sexualized images.
MCSO Detective Brian Broughton said the case began with a tip from a task force monitoring the internet for child porn. It was reported that an “internet user was storing child pornography images and voyeuristic images of young children on a social media platform,” said Broughton.
“He takes the face of a child and then he sexualizes that, removes the clothing and poses the child and engages them in certain sexual activity and that's the images that he's making with his AI,” said Broughton, adding "I was shocked.”