Melania Trump hails first conviction under new law banning AI-generated child sex abuse images

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.