First lady Melania Trump highlighted on Tuesday the first arrest tied to a law she championed targeting cyberstalking, threats of violence, and non-consensual explicit content generated using artificial intelligence.
James Strahler II, 37, of Columbus, Ohio, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a series of cybercrimes involving both authentic and AI-generated sexually explicit images, as well as repeated threats against multiple victims.
“Today marks the first conviction under the Take It Down Act — protecting victims from non-consensual AI-generated sexually explicit images, cyberstalking, and threats of violence,” Trump wrote on X.
The Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act, passed in May 2025, makes it illegal to knowingly publish “intimate visual depictions” of minors or non-consenting adults, explicitly including AI-generated “deepfake” images and videos.
Trump personally lobbied lawmakers to support the bill during a visit to Capitol Hill last year, and the law passed with bipartisan support.
According to a statement from the Department of Justice, Strahler used a wide array of tools to carry out his campaign of harassment.
“Strahler had installed more than 24 AI platforms and more than 100 AI web-based models on his phone,” the DOJ said. “The defendant used telephone calls, voicemails, text messages and web postings to engage in a campaign of harassment against his victims.”
Authorities alleged that Strahler targeted at least six adult women, sending them explicit images, both real and AI-generated, and distributing the material online. He allegedly used the images to threaten the victims, including making phone calls in which he referenced their home addresses and threatened sexual violence.
Authorities also say Strahler created and shared AI-generated images depicting children in sexually explicit scenarios.
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The Justice Department said he produced more than 700 such images and posted them to a website dedicated to child sexual abuse, while an additional 2,400 images and videos found on his phone were flagged as “depicting nudity, morphed child sexual abuse material, or violence.”
“We believe Strahler is the first person in the United States to be convicted under the Take It Down Act,” said U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II. “We will not tolerate the abhorrent practice of posting and publicizing AI-generated intimate images of real individuals without consent.”
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