Updated April 7, 2026, 3:46 p.m. ET
- An Upper Arlington man is believed to be the first particular person within the US convicted underneath the federal revenge porn Take It Down law.
- James Strahler, 37, pleaded guilty to a number of crimes for the creation of AI photos and movies of grownup ladies and minors. He will likely be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Columbus on a later date.
An Upper Arlington man is believed to be the first particular person within the nation to be convicted underneath a 2025 federal law for utilizing AI-generated, sexually specific photos of girls to intimidate and harass them, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbus stated.
James Strahler, 37, pleaded guilty on April 7 in U.S. District Court in Columbus to cyberstalking, producing obscene visible representations of kid sexual abuse and publication of digital forgeries. The legal exercise is covered under the Take It Down Act, which was enacted in 2025 by federal lawmakers and signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Strahler will likely be sentenced at a later date.
According to court docket data, Strahler had greater than 24 AI platforms and 100 AI web-based fashions put in or downloaded on his cellphone. He would use cellphone calls, messages and on-line postings to harass the ladies.
Between December 2024 and June 2025, Strahler despatched messages to a minimum of six grownup females, together with three former romantic companions, that included each actual and AI-generated nude photos, court docket data say.
In one occasion, Strahler created a video utilizing AI to indicate one of many victims engaged in sexual acts along with her father, which Strahler then despatched to the sufferer’s coworkers, court docket data say. Strahler would additionally message the ladies’s moms and demand nude images in alternate for not circulating specific photos that he would create.
Strahler would additionally depart voicemails for the victims together with threats of sexual assault and would confer with particular particulars that instructed the victims he knew the place they lived, court docket data say.
According to court docket data, Strahler additionally posted on-line AI-generated photos of the faces of boys from his neighborhood that he would morph onto the our bodies of different youngsters or adults, as nicely as movies he created. Court data say the movies included the boys engaged in sexual exercise with older feminine relations.
More than 700 photos of actual folks and animated folks have been created by Strahler and posted to an internet site that was devoted to baby sexual abuse materials, court docket data say. An further 2,400 photos and movies found on his cellphone have been flagged as having nudity, violence and/or morphed baby sexual abuse materials.
In January 2025, Strahler had been charged in Franklin County Municipal Court for related alleged conduct and was on pre-trial launch for these prices on the time federal prices have been filed in June 2025.
Dominick Gerace, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, stated his workplace believes Strahler is the first particular person to be convicted underneath a provision of the Take It Down Act.
“We will not tolerate the abhorrent practice of posting and publicizing AI-generated intimate images of real individuals without consent,” Gerace stated. “We are committed to using every tool at our disposal to hold accountable offenders like Strahler.”
Reporter Bethany Bruner might be reached at bbruner@dispatch.com.
