Ohio man becomes first in country to be convicted under federal revenge porn law

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbus told The Columbus Dispatch that James Strahler, 37, of Upper Arlington, the first person in the nation to be convicted under a 2025 federal law for using AI-generated, sexually explicit images of women to intimidate and harass them, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Columbus to cyberstalking, producing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse and publication of digital forgeries.

The court documents obtained by the news source also indicated that Strahler had more than 24 AI platforms and 100 AI web-based models installed or downloaded on his phone, adding that he used phone calls, messages, and online posts to harass the women.

The court records also said that between December 2024 and June 2025, Strahler sent messages to at least six adult females, including three former romantic partners, that included both real and AI-generated nude images.

In addition to creating AI images of women, he would also blackmail mothers of those women by forcing them to send him their nude photos so that he would not circulate the fake explicit images of their daughters, leave sexual assault-related voicemails to the victims, and post AI-generated pornographic images of boys being raped by their female relatives.

The Dispatch
https://www.ohio.news/stories/ohio-man-becomes-first-in-country-to-be-convicted-under-federal-revenge-porn-law/