A repeat sex offender in Pennsyvania has been sentenced to 14 years and seven months in prison for posessing deepfake child pornography of "numerous" young celebrities.
James Smelko, 57, of Pittsburgh, "possessed and accessed pictures that digitally superimposed the faces of child actors onto nude bodies and bodies engaged in sex acts," according to the Department of Justice.
"Smelko possessed the pictures at his home in Pittsburgh," the department said in a press release about the sentencing. "After law enforcement discovered the pictures during a search of Smelko’s computer, he was charged for possessing CSAM. While pending trial, Smelko was found to have violated his conditions of pretrial release by again accessing such images after incriminating web searches and images were detected by court-mandated monitoring software installed on his cell phone."
In November of last year, Smelko was convicted of one count of possessing child pornography and one count of accessing with the intent to view child pornography by a federal jury in Pittsburgh.
Smelko had been facing a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.
Earlier this month, a Florida man was arrested for using artificial intelligence to create deep fake child sexual abuse material.
Daniel Warren, 51, was arrested in January after law enforcement was tipped off about child pornography.
Martin County Chief Deputy John Budensiek said the arrest for artificial intelligence child pornography was the first he's ever been involved in.
Budensiek also said that the images Warren was generating used the faces of real children.
"This is our first case in Martin County where we have seen AI taking a regular headshot and then turning them into child porn and it's alarming to us," Chief Budensiek told local station WBPF.
At least one of the images depicted a child under the age of five.
Det. Brian Broughton told the station, "It's pretty scary when you look at this stuff."
"What he does is 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 certain sexual activity and that's the images that he's making with his AI," Broughton said.
Warren is facing multiple charges, including possession of child pornography and voyeurism under clothing. Budensiek said that they have not ruled out filing additional charges.
The FBI has warned that child pornography created with artificial intelligence is still illegal.
