New Jersey deputy attorney general charged with using AI to generate child porn, officials say

The deputy attorney general for the New Jersey Attorney General's Office has been charged with using artificial intelligence to generate child porn, the Bucks County District Attorney's Office in Pennsylvania announced Thursday. 

Brian Richard Fitzgerald, 51, was charged with multiple felony counts after investigators found that he allegedly used AI to generate child porn and shared the content on social media, according to the DA's office. 

"No one is above the law, least of all someone entrusted with upholding it," Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan said in a statement. "Our office will pursue these cases aggressively and hold offenders fully accountable, regardless of their profession or title."   

The investigation began into Fitzgerald, a Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County, resident, after the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) received a tip that a Discord user shared an illicit image on July 10, 2026. According to the DA's office, digital forensics and subscriber records linked the account and IP address to Fitzgerald's residence on Edgewood Road in Lower Makefield Township.  

Police executed a search warrant at Fitzgerald's home Thursday and "recovered prompts and scripts used to create artificially generated child sexual abuse material using an AI program," the DA's office said.  

"Investigators noted that chat logs recovered from Discord revealed Fitzgerald, who used the Discord username thegentlemanpervert_2160_07833, admitted to making multiple illicit images using artificial intelligence and sharing them with other users," the DA's office wrote in a news release. 

Fitzgerald was arraigned Thursday and taken to the Bucks County Correctional Facility. His bail was set at $2 million.

Fitzgerald has a preliminary hearing scheduled for later in October.