Bucks County charges New Jersey deputy attorney general

Brian Richard Fitzgerald is held on $2 million bail after a Discord tip led police to AI prompts at his home.

Brian Richard Fitzgerald, a New Jersey deputy attorney general, was arrested at his Lower Makefield Township home on October 15, 2026, on felony charges that he used artificial intelligence to generate child sexual abuse material and shared it online, Bucks County authorities said.¹²

Fitzgerald, 51, is a deputy attorney general in the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.¹ He had held the post since 2016, preparing insurance fraud and insurance licensee cases for trial, according to his LinkedIn profile.²³ Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan said no one is above the law, “least of all someone entrusted with upholding it.”¹²

The investigation began after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children forwarded a CyberTip that a Discord user had shared an illicit image file on July 10, 2026, according to the affidavit of probable cause.¹⁴ Digital forensics and subscriber records linked the account and associated internet protocol addresses to Fitzgerald’s residence on Edgewood Road.¹²

Investigators tied the Discord username thegentlemanpervert_2160_07833 to Fitzgerald.¹³ During a search warrant at the house on October 15, law enforcement recovered prompts and scripts used to create artificially generated child sexual abuse material with an AI program, the county said.¹² Chat logs from Discord showed Fitzgerald allegedly admitted to making multiple illicit images using artificial intelligence and sharing them with other users.¹²

New Jersey officials accused him of turning social media photos of real minors into sexualized images that he then distributed.² The investigation also found he acquired child sexual abuse material depicting real children through another social media platform and shared that as well, the county said.¹⁴

He was charged with possession of child sexual abuse material, dissemination of photos or film of child sexual abuse materials, and criminal use of a communication facility.¹² All three charges are felonies.¹ Criminal charges are allegations subject to proof in court, and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.¹

Magisterial District Judge Corryn L. Kronnagel arraigned him, set bail at $2 million with a 10 percent payment requirement, and remanded him to Bucks County Correctional Facility.¹⁴ He remained in custody Friday.³ His attorney, Paul Lang, declined to comment.³ A preliminary hearing is scheduled for October 27.³

The New Jersey Office of the Attorney General said it was aware of the arrest, was cooperating with Khan’s investigation, and was taking “appropriate actions toward his employment.”³ The Department of Law and Public Safety later terminated him, effective retroactively to Thursday, the day of the arrest.⁴ He was also removed Friday from a seat on an ethics committee affiliated with the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics, pending the final disposition of the charges.⁴

On October 13, two days before the arrest, Fitzgerald had requested removal from attorney ethics cases in Mercer County to which he had been assigned.⁴ The case was investigated by Bucks County Detective Eric Landamia and Lower Makefield Detective Peter Lange.¹

Khan said his office “will pursue these cases aggressively and hold offenders fully accountable, regardless of their profession or title.”¹³ U.S. authorities have treated AI-generated child sexual abuse material as child sexual abuse material since at least 2024, when the Department of Justice told law enforcement that “CSAM generated by AI is still CSAM.”²

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The record

25 sentences trace to 4 sources.

All 4Documents 1Records 1Reporting 2People 0

1. 1 B buckscounty.gov Official record · buckscounty.gov New Jersey Deputy Attorney General Arrested in Bucks County on Child Sexual Abuse Material Charges See the source
2. 2 AB Ashley Belanger Document · arstechnica.com · 16 Oct 2026 “thegentlemanpervert” producing AI CSAM is a NJ prosecutor, say cops See the source
3. 3 TP The Philadelphia Inquirer Third-party reporting · inquirer.com · 16 Oct 2026 N.J. state prosecutor used AI to create and share child pornography, Bucks DA says See the source
4. 4 N newjerseyglobe.com Third-party reporting · newjerseyglobe.com Deputy attorney general fired after arrest on distributing child sex material - New Jersey Globe See the source

Also consulted: 2 pages across 2 sites, none cited.