East Northport Man Indicted on 62 Counts for AI-Altered Child Abuse Images

Leonard Suskin, 53, of East Northport was indicted on 62 felony counts after a fellow Long Island Rail Road commuter filmed him openly viewing and uploading child sexual abuse material during a January 2026 train ride, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced.

A grand jury returned an indictment against Suskin on charges including two counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child as a sexually motivated felony, four counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child, and 56 counts of possessing a sexual performance by a child. Prosecutors allege he used artificial intelligence to transform otherwise innocent photos of children into explicit sexual content and then distributed the material through social media platforms.

The case broke open when a fellow commuter noticed Suskin viewing and uploading the material, filmed him through the gap between seats, and tracked which stop he exited. That footage gave Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police enough to identify Suskin. Investigators then executed search warrants on his phone, flash drives recovered from his briefcase, and additional devices at his East Northport home. The Suffolk County Police Department's Digital Forensics Unit analyzed each device and found CSAM on several of them, including AI-altered images derived from photos of children.

Suskin was arraigned April 6 before Acting Supreme Court Justice Karen M. Wilutis.

"This defendant allegedly sat on a commuter train and openly viewed and shared child sexual abuse material and was caught when a fellow passenger had the courage to act," DA Tierney said. "My office will prosecute anyone who exploits children in Suffolk County. We urge parents to be mindful of the images of their children that they share publicly online, as predators can and do use those images for these purposes."

The indictment comes as AI-generated child sexual abuse material has escalated at a staggering national pace. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children documented a 1,325% increase in AI-generated CSAM reports between 2023 and 2024, totaling roughly 67,000 reports. By June 2025, that figure had reached 440,419 new reports, a 6,345% jump from the same period in 2024, according to the WeProtect Global Alliance. The Internet Watch Foundation detected a record 3,440 AI videos of child sexual abuse in 2025, up from just 13 the year prior, a 26,362% increase, with more than half classified in the most serious category.

New York has moved aggressively on the legal front. In her January 13, 2026 State of the State address, Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted the enactment of what she called a first-in-the-nation law to outlaw AI-generated child sexual abuse material. Forty-five states now explicitly criminalize AI-generated or computer-edited CSAM, with more than half of those laws enacted in 2024 and 2025 alone.

The Suskin case is not the first child exploitation prosecution to emerge from East Northport under DA Tierney's office. Dakota Rose, 25, pleaded guilty in October 2024 to sexually abusing a 3-year-old while videotaping the abuse and distributing the video, a case that originated from a tip to the NCMEC's CyberTipline. Rose faces a maximum sentence of 7 to 15 years in prison plus 10 years of post-release supervision.

All charges against Suskin are allegations. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Anyone with information about online child exploitation can contact the NCMEC's CyberTipline at 800-THE-LOST. The Suffolk County DA's office handles these cases through its dedicated Child Protection Unit, Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit, and Human Trafficking and Exploitation Unit, all of which coordinate with the SCPD's Digital Forensics Unit.