FACT FOCUS: Images of NYC mayor with Jeffrey Epstein are AI-generated. Here’s how we know

A document that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files is photographed Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, shows the report when Epstein was taken into custody on July 6, 2019. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick) Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] Multiple AI-generated photos falsely claiming to show New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a child and his mother, filmmaker Mira Nair, with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, along with other high-profile public figures, were shared widely on social media Monday.The images originated on an X account labeled as parody after a huge tranche of new Epstein files was released by the Justice Department on Friday. They are clearly watermarked as AI and other elements they contain do not add up.Here’s a closer look at the facts.CLAIM: Images show Mamdani as a child and his mother with Jeffrey Epstein and other public figures linked to the disgraced financier.THE FACTS: The images were created with artificial intelligence. They all contain a digital watermark identifying them as such and first appeared on a parody X account that says it creates “high quality AI videos and memes.” In one of the images, Mamdani and Nair appear in the front of a group photo with Maxwell, Epstein, former President Bill Clinton, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. They seem to be posing at night on a crowded city street. Mamdani looks to be a preteen or young teenager. Another supposedly shows the same group of people, minus Nair, in what appears to be a tropical setting. Epstein is pictured holding Clinton sitting in his arms, while Maxwell has her arm around Mamdani, who appears slightly younger. Other AI-generated images circulating online depict Mamdani as a baby being held by Nair while she poses with Epstein, Clinton, Maxwell and Bezos. None of Epstein’s victims have publicly accused Clinton, Gates or Bezos of being involved in his crimes.Google’s Gemini app detected SynthID, a digital watermarking tool for identifying content that has been generated or altered with AI, in all the images described above. This means they were created or edited, either entirely or in part, by Google’s AI models. The X account that first posted the images describes itself as “an AI-powered meme engine” that uses “AI to create memes, songs, stories, and visuals that call things exactly how they are — fast, loud, and impossible to ignore.”An inquiry sent to the account went unanswered. However, a post by the account seems to acknowledge that it created the images.“Damn you guys failed,” it reads. “I purposely made him a baby which would technically make this pic 34 years old. Yikes.”The photos began circulating after an email emerged in which a publicist, Peggy Siegal, wrote to Epstein about seeing a variety of luminaries, including Clinton, Bezos and Nair, an award-winning Indian filmmaker, at 2009 afterparty for a film held at Maxwell’s townhouse.While Mamdani appears as a baby or young child in all of the images, he was 18 in 2009, when Nair is said to have attended the party. The images have led to related falsehoods that have spread online in their wake. For example, one claims that Epstein is Mamdani’s father. This is not true — Mamdani’s father is Mahmood Mamdani, an anthropology professor at Columbia University.The NYC Mayor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.___Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck. Goldin debunks, analyzes and tracks misinformation for The Associated Press. She is based in New York.