Overview
- James Strahler II, who pleaded guilty Tuesday, admitted to cyberstalking, creating obscene child abuse imagery, and publishing digital forgeries, the law’s term for deepfakes.
- U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II said it is the first conviction under the federal law, and sentencing will be set at a later date.
- Prosecutors said he used more than 24 AI tools and over 100 web models to target at least six women with nude images, threats of rape, and messages sent to families and co-workers.
- Investigators reported more than 700 images posted to a child abuse website and 2,400 files on his phone, including deepfakes that morphed boys’ faces onto other bodies.
- The 2025 law criminalizes nonconsensual intimate images and requires platforms to remove flagged posts within 48 hours, which could speed takedowns and spur more cases as new processes roll out by May.