And the 2024 legislative session.

Lawmakers unanimously passed House Bill 207.

It addresses sensitive topics and viewer discretion as it vies for the story we're about to bring you.

House Bill 207 Explicitly Outlaws A.I.

or Artificial intelligence generated child Pornography and the possession of child sex dolls.

But this child protection measure wasn't preemptive.

It was in response to problems facing law enforcement agents in Northern Kentucky.

Our Clayton Dalton brings you this update on House Bill 207 and tonight's legislative update.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman was joined by state lawmakers, prosecutors and detectives in Covington yesterday to praise the passage of House Bill 207.

They shared why this bill was a step in the right direction.

We can't do this alone.

So this wasn't just me running a bill.

It started with Rob Sanders contacting me in 2023 and saying, we have a problem.

We had had three individuals that had shop size sex dolls shipped in to our jurisdiction in sort of about two years.

And the problem was they weren't illegal in and of themselves.

Yet we were three for three in catching those individuals with child sexual assault material stored on their electronic devices.

When we went in, did the search warrants, but we were having a problem that we shouldn't be have.

We shouldn't have to litigate this hard to prove to a court that we know that someone that has a child sized sex doll will also be preying upon children.

We also have to have pornography in their possession.

We know it's there.

We just have to legally be able to go get it.

Rob Sanders is the chief prosecutor in Kenton County.

He said this bill makes it easier to put child sexual offenders behind bars.

It's really giving us the tools we need.

It's given our county police like Detective Carr.

Wallace sits in the back.

He handles these of cases at the investigation stage.

It's giving him the tools he needs to find detectives like the one we hear with the E Crimes dog that will go in that will find all these horrific materials and bring these people to justice, put them in jail, and give the prosecutors across the Commonwealth of Kentucky the tools we need to bury these folks under the prison where they belong.

Attorney General Coleman said this bill isn't just theoretical.

It's been put into practice since its passage.

These predators that use this technology, that use these dolls to accelerate their activity.

They're not just in the shadows.

They are here.

We fight them.

The men and women on my left and my right fight them every day.

These tools will make it more effective and make us more effective in this fight.

The new law is working.

This is not just academic.

The law is working.

Last month, our colleagues with the Kentucky State Police announced an arrest and subsequent prosecution of a subject in Metcalf County, Kentucky, for exploitation, including a charge of possession of a child sex doll.

It doesn't happen just elsewhere.

It happens here.

And although these crimes aren't new, the attorney general's office is using creative, new ways to investigate people who violate these laws, like using a trained K-9 to sniff out electronic materials used by child sexual offenders.

She can find any device that's capable of storing a electronic data.

So think cell phones, SD cards, micro SD cards, external hard drives, laptops.

She can find things of micro SD card size of down.

She can find them.

This legislation will be a model for other states moving forward.

And as a person who was in the trenches, as a person who was supervising the unit for the controlled delivery of a child sex doll in Clinton County and my time with the state police, I'm very grateful for its passage.