Pittsburgh man gets 14 years for possession of deepfake child abuse images
May 1 (UPI) -- A Pittsburgh man was sentenced in a Western Pennsylvania federal court to more than 14 years in prison on Tuesday for possessing deepfake child sexual abuse material falsely depicting child celebrities.
James Smelko, 57, was convicted last November on one count of possessing child pornography and one count of accessing with the intent to view child pornography. He faced a maximum of 40 years.
While his trial was pending, prosecutors said Smelko violated the conditions of his pretrial release by accessing illegal videos and images that were detecting court-mandated software on his cellphone.
Law enforcement initially found deepfake child abuse pictures during a search of Smelko's computer.
According to court documents and trial evidence, Smelko would digitally superimpose faces of child celebrities onto images of other bodies that were nude and ones that depicted people engaged in sex.
Authorities said he had the images at his Pittsburgh home.
The Justice Department's Project Safe Childhood brought the case as a joint project of federal, state and local law enforcement to locate and apprehend individuals who exploit children via the Internet and rescue victims.
