Overview
- James Strahler, 37, pleaded guilty in federal court in Columbus to cyberstalking, producing obscene visual depictions of child sexual abuse, and publishing digital forgeries, with sentencing to follow.
- Prosecutors say he used more than 24 AI platforms and over 100 web-based models to create and spread explicit deepfakes in a sustained harassment campaign against multiple victims.
- Court records detail calls, texts, and voicemails that threatened rape, the sharing of AI sex videos to a victim’s coworkers, and coercive demands sent to victims’ mothers for nude photos.
- Investigators say he morphed faces of local boys onto adult bodies and made incest-themed videos, posted over 700 images to a child sexual abuse site, and kept about 2,400 more images and videos on his phone.
- The 2025 Take It Down Act bans nonconsensual intimate images including AI deepfakes and requires platforms to remove them within 48 hours, and officials say this first conviction could prompt tougher moderation and more cases.