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Montana DOJ, legislators push new 'grooming' offense and AI provisions in child-exploitation bill
Summary
Lawmakers and Department of Justice witnesses urged passage of House Bill 82 to create an offense for online grooming, allow undercover officers to stand in for child victims in stings, and criminalize AI-generated sexual images and extortion tied to those images.
Representative Cathy Love, sponsor: Representative Cathy Love (House District 85) opened a hearing on House Bill 82, saying the bill, brought by the Montana Department of Justice, is intended to update state law to address online grooming and AI-enabled exploitation of children.
The bill would create a distinct offense for grooming a child for sexual offenses, add language that allows undercover law enforcement to act in place of a child for certain online offenses, criminalize computer- or AI-generated child sexual images, and make related extortion a crime, proponents told the House Judiciary Committee.
Attorney General Austin Knudson, administrator of the Montana Department of Justice, said the proposal would "create the new crime of grooming a child for sexual offenses" and would fix gaps prosecutors are seeing in cases that began as online…
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