Repeat offender

First man convicted under Take It Down Act kept making AI nudes after arrest

Ohio man used more than 100 AI tools to make fake nudes of women and minors.

Ashley Belanger – Apr 9, 2026 11:43 am | 78

Melania Trump championed the Take It Down Act and celebrated the first conviction. Credit: Kayla Bartkowski / Staff | Getty Images News

An Ohio man became the first person convicted under the Take It Down Act after pleading guilty to creating and sharing both real and AI-generated explicit images of at least 10 victims without their consent.

According to a Justice Department press release, 37-year-old James Strahler II used AI tools to create fake sexualized images to harass at least six women he knew. In some images, he depicted one victim engaged in sex with her father and shared that image with her mother and co-workers. He also used AI to create explicit and incestuous images that placed the faces of minor boys on adult bodies, including young boys related to his victims.

Cops found that Strahler “installed more than 24 AI platforms and more than 100 AI web-based models on his phone,” which he used to create hundreds, if not thousands, of non-consensual intimate images (NCII) depicting both women and children.

Court documents showed that he created the images to try to coerce victims and their mothers into sending genuine nude images, while also threatening rape and “leaving voicemails of him masturbating.” According to the Columbus Dispatch, Strahler made some of the unlawful images of his exes, their family, and their friends “to scare women into reconciling with him.”

Additionally, he posted more than 700 images depicting real and “animated” persons “to a website dedicated to child sexual abuse.” Cops also found that he posted NCII of at least one victim and her mother on a website called “Motherless,” which encourages users to post “anything legal.” And Strahler also posed as a victim on a pornographic site, where he “provided AI-generated images and video to at least one person,” The Columbus Dispatch reported.

On Tuesday, Strahler pled guilty to “cyberstalking, producing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse, and publication of digital forgeries.” He has yet to be sentenced for the crimes. Under the Take It Down Act, he risks a prison sentence of up to two years for publishing NCII depicting adults and up to three years for images of minors.

Man kept making AI nudes after arrest

The Take It Down Act was passed in May 2025, and Strahler was arrested on federal charges by June.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was called in after Strahler’s phone was seized in April, after one of his victims called local police. Confronted by the local cops, Strahler admitted to creating and sending the images, then was arrested and jailed.

Once the FBI got involved, an analysis of his device showed that he had “similarly harassed two ex-girlfriends and their mothers,” The New York Times reported. The FBI also found images of two boys on the phone.

That arrest was not enough to stop Strahler from creating more images, though. While he was on pre-trial release in the first case, another Ohio police department arrested him in June after he continued sending fake nudes to harass one of his victims. A search of his new phone uncovered more than 2,400 images and videos “depicting nudity, child sexual abuse material, or violence,” the press release said.

Celebrating Strahler’s conviction, the US Attorney in the Southern District of Ohio, Dominick S. Gerace II, said that his office is “committed to using every tool at our disposal to hold accountable offenders like Strahler, who seek to intimidate and harass others by creating and circulating this disturbing content.”

“We believe Strahler is the first person in the United States to be convicted under the Take It Down Act,” Gerace said. “We will not tolerate the abhorrent practice of posting and publicizing AI-generated intimate images of real individuals without consent.”

On X, Melania Trump also claimed the conviction as a win after championing the Take It Down Act and joining Donald Trump in signing it into law. On Tuesday, she praised Gerace’s team for putting an end to Strahler’s harassment and “protecting Americans from cybercrimes in this new digital age.”

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Ashley Belanger Senior Policy Reporter

Ashley Belanger Senior Policy Reporter

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.