Sex offender accused of having AI-generated child porn
Ryan Shiner
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A registered sex offender has been charged with a felony after he allegedly kept child pornography on his cellphone that was generated by artificial intelligence.
Charles Hooton, 63, of Columbia, was charged with possessing child porn. He is being held at the Boone County Jail without bond. An initial court appearance was held Wednesday afternoon.
The probable cause statement says police were called on May 18 about a report of Hooton having child porn after a woman saw a number of images while using his cellphone.
Hooton spoke with police on July 24 and let them go through his phone, court documents say. He allegedly admitted to using an AI app to generate the explicit images, the statement says. Police wrote that more than 130 AI-generated images were found on Hooton’s phone.
“Any time you possess more than 20 images, it’s a felony that comes with a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison,” said Elizabeth Weaver, Boone County Assistant Prosecutor.
Weaver tells ABC 17 News while the pornographic material may be artificial, the people in the photos are real.
“The reality is each time artificial intelligence generates a new item of child sexual abuse media it is re- victimizing those who have been used and taken advantage of in order to create the original images,” Weaver said.
Hooton’s web history also included several websites that had “teen,” “boy” and other related phrases in the name, court documents say.
Court documents and the Missouri sex offender registry say Hooton was convicted of second-degree statutory sodomy 25 years ago.
The Executive Director for Missouri’s Network Against Child Abuse Jessica Seitz told ABC 17 News artificial intelligence is the latest hurdle in their fight.
“The use of AI through an app to create CSAM? We don’t have great data on that yet because, we’re just trying to catch up with how we’re tracking the use of technology,” Seitz said.
Seitz believes prevention is in education of both adults and children.
“The best they can do on the prevention side is to try to discourage from your images being out there in public as much as possible. You can’t be sure what those images, once they’re public, you can’t be sure what’s going to be done with them,” Seitz said.
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