An Ohio man who harassed women with sexually graphic artificial intelligence-generated images may be the first person in the country convicted under the federal 2025 Take It Down Act which combats nonconsensual intimate imagery and deepfakes.
Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act or the TAKE IT DOWN Act prohibits the nonconsensual online publication of intimate visual depictions of individuals, both authentic and computer-generated, and requires certain online platforms to promptly remove such depictions upon receiving notice of their existence.
Specifically, the bill prohibits the online publication of intimate visual depictions of:
- an adult subject where publication is intended to cause or does cause harm to the subject, and where the depiction was published without the subject’s consent or, in the case of an authentic depiction, was created or obtained under circumstances where the adult had a reasonable expectation of privacy; or
- a minor subject where publication is intended to abuse or harass the minor or to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.
Violators are subject to mandatory restitution and criminal penalties, including prison, a fine, or both. Threats to publish intimate visual depictions of a subject are similarly prohibited under the bill and subject to criminal penalties.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio charged James Strahler, 37, with cyberstalking, producing obscene visuals of child sexual abuse and publishing digital forgeries, also known as deepfakes. He pleaded guilty on April 7,2026.
Strahler used AI to generate over 700 nonconsensual images and videos of women and minors. He also sent harassing phone calls and messages and used online posts to target some victims, leveraging more than 24 AI platforms and 100 web-based models to create images and deepfakes. From December 2024 to June 2025, Strahler sent messages to three former romantic partners that featured real and AI-generated nudity.
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