A 28-year-old Stuart man is facing four felony charges after police say a tip from a national child-safety watchdog led them to child sexual abuse material, some of it allegedly generated using artificial intelligence. Daniel Perez was arrested Sept. 22 and has since posted bond, according to court and police records.
The case began in February, when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent Stuart police a cybertip, as reported by TCPalm. NCMEC reportedly gave detectives three alleged child sexual abuse images that court records describe as having been “determined to be created through artificial intelligence and associated to a X.ai/Grok account associated to Perez,” per that reporting. Grok is an artificial intelligence assistant built by SpaceXAI, according to the outlet.
Stuart Police Department detectives, who led the investigation into Perez’s alleged possession of AI-generated child pornography, used subpoenas as the case developed and eventually executed a search warrant in April at Perez’s listed address, the same reporting states. Police reported finding child sexual abuse material on a device recovered during that search, according to TCPalm’s account.
Bond Set at $82,500
Perez was booked and later released from the Martin County Jail on Sept. 24 after posting an $82,500 bond, per the same report. According to Stuart police, Perez possessed both AI-generated child pornography and child sexual abuse material, and he is now facing charges related to that alleged possession, as reported by WPEC.
Police said that using artificial intelligence to create the material does not make the underlying conduct any less serious or less criminal, according to WPEC. The department has said it will continue pursuing people responsible for what it describes as technology-facilitated child exploitation and will keep investigating similar cases.
A Growing Legal Gray Area Nationwide
Perez’s case comes amid responses to AI-generated child sexual abuse material in several states. Wisconsin lawmakers passed legislation in 2024 adding AI-generated content to the state’s child pornography possession laws, according to KRCR TV. That change followed the case of Meillo Schneider, a 20-year-old Wisconsin man who faced seven counts of possessing virtual child pornography after authorities said they found more than 13,000 files, including thousands of JPG and GIF files depicting anime or artistic renderings of child sexual abuse material, in data provided by Amazon. Prosecutors in Fond du Lac County described it as the first case of its kind their office had brought.
Other states have moved even more directly to close gaps around AI-created imagery. Wyoming’s HB 102 explicitly writes visual depictions generated or created by an artificial intelligence system into the state’s definition of child pornography and specifies that using artificial intelligence to commit a criminal offense is not a legal defense, according to Regulations.ai. In Arizona, a Chandler man was reportedly the first person prosecuted under a new state law making it a felony to create AI-generated child sex abuse images, according to a low-confidence report from States Newsroom.
It remains unclear what specific Florida statutes underpin the four felony counts against Perez, and the case’s next steps in court have not been reported. For now, Stuart police say their investigation into technology-facilitated child exploitation continues.
