Who is Darrin Bell? Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post cartoonist arrested for child pornography

Darrin Bell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist whose work has appeared in the Washington Post and other newspapers across the United States, has reportedly been arrested for possession of child pornography, California law enforcement has confirmed. According to Sgt. Amar Gandhi, of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, began the investigation after an individual uploaded as many as 18 files of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to an online service. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that a total of 134 videos containing CSAM had been recovered.

On Wednesday, Jan. 15, a search warrant was executed at Bell’s home after authorities learned he owned and controlled the account in question. Bell was subsequently taken into custody and booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail for CSAM possession, BNO News reported.

Gandhi said this is the very first case involving the possession of AI-generated child pornography in Sacramento County. On January 1st, a law came into force making this a criminal offence.

Bell is being held on $1 million bail. The 49-year-old will appear in court on Friday, January 17.

Who is Darrin Bell?

Bell is the recipient of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, the 2016 Berryman Award for Editorial Cartooning, the 2015 RFK Award for Editorial Cartooning, and UC Berkeley’s 2015 Daily Californian Alumni of the Year Award. He started his career in 1995 when he was 20 years old.

According to the Macmillan Publishers website, “While serving as a staff cartoonist for the Daily Californian, he began freelancing for the Opinion pages of the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Oakland Tribune. In 1997, he created the Rudy Park comic strip and self-syndicated it to technology magazines. United Media launched it in newspapers in 2001. In 2003, Darrin launched his second comic, Candorville, in newspapers via the Washington Post Writers Group (WPWG), which also began to syndicate his editorial cartoon in 2013.”

It adds: “While WPWG still syndicates Candorville and Rudy Park, Darrin moved his editorial cartoons to King Features Syndicate in late 2018. He is also a contributing cartoonist for the New Yorker.”

After winning the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, Bell, who lives with his wife and four children in California, told ABC News: “What I want (readers) to take away is that we need to respect human dignity more .That’s the common thread I try to weave through every cartoon I draw—whether it’s about police brutality or about immigrants being separated from their children, or whether it’s about Donald Trump moment of confirmation.”