James Strahler II, a 37-year-old from Ohio, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal charges including cyberstalking and producing AI-generated child sexual abuse material, marking the first conviction under the 2025 Take It Down Act. The law, signed by President Donald Trump, targets nonconsensual intimate images created with AI. Strahler used dozens of AI tools to harass women and create explicit images involving minors.
Strahler was arrested in June 2025 after authorities seized his phone, which contained more than 24 AI platforms and over 100 web-based AI models. He created around 700 images depicting real and animated victims, including placing faces of young boys from his community onto adult bodies in explicit scenarios. He also possessed an additional 2,400 images of child sex abuse material and posted content to websites like Motherless and others dedicated to such material. Court documents show he used these images to harass at least six women he knew, including ex-girlfriends and their families, by sharing depictions such as one victim engaged in sex with her father to her mother and co-workers, aiming to coerce them into sending real nudes or reconciling with him. Even after an initial arrest and while on pre-trial release, Strahler continued creating and sending fake nudes, leading to another arrest in June with more illicit content found on a new device. He faces up to two years in prison for adult images and three years for those involving minors under the Take It Down Act, with sentencing pending. US Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II for the Southern District of Ohio called the conviction a stand against 'the abhorrent practice of posting and publicizing AI-generated intimate images of real individuals without consent,' vowing to hold such offenders accountable. First Lady Melania Trump, a proponent of the law, praised Gerace's team on X for 'protecting Americans from cybercrimes in this new digital age.' Advocates like Stefan Turkheimer of RAINN hailed it as proof the law 'has teeth,' while the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children noted over 7,000 reports of AI-created child sex abuse material via its CyberTipline.
