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High reported severity Criminal Charges

US federal complaints allege two men published AI sexual deepfakes of about 90 and at least 50 women, including women who are not public figures

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged two men in separate cases under the TAKE IT DOWN Act. The sworn complaints allege that each published albums of AI-generated sexual images and videos of identifiable women on an adult-content platform: about 90 women in one case and at least 50 in the other, including acquaintances and recent high-school graduates whose ordinary photographs were turned into sexual videos. The charges are unproven.

AI system
Unidentified image and video tool
Occurred
19 May 2025 to 17 Apr 2026
Reported
20 May 2026
Event location
United States
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Exploitation or AbuseReputational HarmPsychological Distress
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Privacy · Justice
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account
7 claims: 6 documented, 1 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 50 people

AI system as recorded: Unnamed AI image and video generation tools used to turn still photographs of identifiable women into sexually explicit 'digital forgeries'; the FBI affiants attribute the material to AI partly because album titles and hashtags label it AI-generated (complaints, E.D.N.Y. 26-MJ-96 and 26-MJ-97)

What Happened

Two separate criminal complaints unsealed in Brooklyn on 20 May 2026 charge two unconnected men with publishing AI-generated sexual 'digital forgeries' of identifiable adults without consent. According to the FBI affidavits, law enforcement captured both accounts on an adult-content image and video platform in February or March and again on 17 April 2026. One account held about 360 albums with AI pornographic material of approximately 90 women, mostly politicians and entertainers. The other held albums with AI pornographic material of at least 50 women, including women who are not public figures: albums turned still photographs, among them yearbook-style graduation portraits, into sexual videos, and law enforcement identified several of these women as connected to the accused. The affiants say the material is believed to be AI-generated partly because titles and hashtags label it so, and they describe harms that depicted women reported, including loss of dignity and psychological, emotional and reputational harm. The charges are allegations.

Reported harm

The complaints allege that at least 50 and approximately 90 women in the two cases were depicted without consent in AI-generated sexual images and videos published on an adult-content platform and viewed hundreds of thousands to millions of times; the FBI affiants describe loss of dignity and psychological, emotional and reputational harm reported by depicted women. No individual victim's account was published.

Outcome

Pending

Both men were arrested on 20 May 2026 and the complaints were unsealed in the Eastern District of New York; each faces up to two years' imprisonment if convicted. No later docket activity was found on 2026-10-20.

What remains unknown

  • The AI tools used to generate the material.
  • Whether any woman is depicted in both cases, and so the combined number of depicted women.
  • The ages of the depicted high-school graduates when their photographs were taken.
  • Whether the publication began before 19 May 2025; the complaints count publication from that date, when the law was enacted.
  • Later docket activity (indictment, pleas, trial or sentence); none was found in news searches on 2026-10-20.
  • Whether the material has been removed from the platform.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The sworn complaints say the accounts published explicit AI-generated content in which still photographs of identifiable women morph into AI-generated sexual depictions, and each FBI affiant attributes the material to AI in part because album titles or hashtags label it AI-generated (s5, s6). The release calls it AI deepfake pornography. The generation tools are not named and no technical examination is described in the pages read.

7 claims: 6 documented, 1 reported. What the statuses mean

Documented Two separate federal criminal complaints, unsealed in Brooklyn on 20 May 2026, charged two men with publishing AI-generated sexual digital forgeries in violation of the TAKE IT DOWN Act. Both were arrested that day, each faces up to two years' imprisonment if convicted, and the charges are allegations.

Causal attribution. Established by the prosecuting office's own release (the fact of the complaints, arrests and maximum penalty); TIME relays it. The conduct alleged in the complaints remains unproven.

  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'two criminal complaints were unsealed charging'; 'with violations of the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which was enacted one year ago and prohibits the nonconsensual publication of AI-generated digital forgeries (deepfake) pornography'; 'If convicted of the charge, the defendants each face up to two years'; 'The charges in the complaints are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.'; 'E.D.N.Y. Docket Nos. 26-MJ-96 and 26-MJ-97'
  • time.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'were arrested in unconnected cases on Wednesday and each faces up to two years in prison'; 'Both men were charged in federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday.'
Documented The sworn complaints allege that, as of 17 April 2026, one account had published approximately 360 albums containing AI pornographic material of approximately 90 different women, mostly public figures, and the other had published albums containing AI pornographic material of at least 50 different women, including women who are not public figures, on an adult-content image and video platform.

Causal attribution. The complaints establish what the FBI affiants allege; the conduct and the counts remain allegations. The release rounds the second case to 'approximately 50'; the complaint says 'at least 50'.

  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'publishing explicit, AI-generated content'; 'which contained AI pornographic material of approximately 90 different female victims'; 'which predominantly contained AI-generated explicit content of female public figures'; 'Victim 2 is a female political figure.'
  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'publishing explicit, AI-generated content'; 'The albums contained AI pornographic material of at least 50 different female victims.'; 'has published multiple albums containing AI-generated sexually explicit photographs and videos purporting to depict real people who are not public figures'
  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'has published at least 360 albums containing AI deepfake pornography depicting approximately 90 different female victims'; 'approximately 50 different identifiable female victims, including individuals who are not public figures'; 'an image- and video-sharing internet platform designed for creators to share adult and explicit content'
Documented In both complaints the FBI affiant says the videos depicting the charged victims are believed to be AI-generated in part because album titles or hashtags under the videos say so; no generation tool is named in the inspected pages.

Causal attribution. The affiants' stated basis for the AI attribution, documented by the complaints; the tools and any technical examination of the files are not described in the pages read.

  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'were generated using AI, in part because the titles of albums containing these materials, and/or the hashtags displayed underneath the videos, reflect that the materials are AI-generated'
  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'were generated using AI, in part because the titles of albums containing these materials, and/or the hashtags'; 'displayed underneath the videos, reflect that the materials are AI-generated'
Documented One complaint alleges that albums depicting women who are not public figures, several of them identified by law enforcement as connected to the defendant, turned still photographs into AI-generated sexual depictions, including yearbook-style high-school graduation portraits of girls morphed into sexually explicit videos.

Causal attribution. Allegations documented by the complaint; TIME and TechTimes relay the same filing. The ages of the depicted graduates are not stated in the pages read.

  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'These albums contain still, non-explicit images of identifiable individuals, which morph into AI-generated depictions of the individuals in various stages of undress and/or engaging in sexually explicit conduct.'; 'law enforcement authorities have identified several of the non-famous victims depicted in'; 'contains yearbook-style portraits of girls wearing their high school graduation cap and gowns, which morph into videos depicting the likenesses of the same girls engaging in sexually explicit conduct'
  • time.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Some of the materials were deepfakes of recent high school graduates, the complaint said.'
  • techtimes.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Prosecutors said the victims included recent high school graduates.'
  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Victims Included Celebrities, Elected Officials, and Acquaintances of the Defendants'
Documented Each FBI affiant says the account of harm draws on conversations with multiple depicted victims or their representatives, and lists harms that women depicted in such forgeries have described, including loss of dignity and psychological, emotional and reputational harm. The complaints do not attribute a particular harm to a particular victim.

Causal attribution. The affiants' own statements in sworn complaints; the underlying conversations with victims were not published, so individual harms are not established.

  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Based on my conversations with multiple victims who have had AI-generated pornographic material purporting to depict them published by'; 'The loss of dignity inherent in the idea that someone else can manipulate their images'; 'Psychological, emotional, and reputational harms attendant to knowing that materials depicting oneself engaged in sexual activities are widespread'
  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Based on my conversations with multiple victims who have had AI-generated pornographic material purporting to depict them published by'; 'The loss of dignity inherent in the idea that someone else can manipulate their images'; 'Psychological, emotional, and reputational harms attendant to knowing that materials depicting oneself engaged in sexual activities are widespread'
Documented The U.S. Attorney said that, as alleged, the defendants used digital technology to create images that degraded and violated victims across the United States, and the FBI said the conduct inflicts emotional harm on victims and violates their privacy, dignity and security.

Causal attribution. Officials' characterisation of the alleged harm in the release.

  • justice.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'the defendants used cutting-edge digital technology to create images that degraded and violated victims across the United States'; 'inflicts emotional harm on victims, violating their privacy, dignity, and security'
Reported TechTimes adds the prosecutors' approximate figures to 140 victims and nearly 3 million views; whether any woman is depicted in both cases is not reported.

Causal attribution. TechTimes' own sums of approximate figures; the release and complaints give no combined total, and overlap between the two cases is unresolved.

  • techtimes.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Federal prosecutors charged two men whose combined deepfake albums depicted 140 named victims and reached nearly 3 million views.'

Sources

5 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read on 2026-10-20 from the Internet Archive capture of 21 May 2026 (web.archive.org/web/20260521195624id_/...); the live page returned a 2.5 kB shell. Press release of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York dated Wednesday 20 May 2026. Applies to s1.

Read on 2026-10-20 from the Internet Archive capture of 22 May 2026 (20260522122010); the live page answered HTTP 406. TIME, Miranda Jeyaretnam, 22 May 2026. Its account of the two cases relies on the release and the complaints, so it shares their independence group. Applies to s2.

Read live on 2026-10-20 (TechTimes, 25 May 2026). Relies on the release and court filings; its combined figures (140 victims, nearly 3 million views) are its own sums of the prosecutors' approximate numbers. Applies to s3.

Cited by the June 2026 row; answered HTTP 403 on 2026-10-20, and the Internet Archive capture checked on 2026-09-24 contained no article text. Not relied on. Applies to s4.

Redacted complaint and affidavit in support of an arrest warrant, E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 26-MJ-96 (one of the two cases), linked from the release and fetched from justice.gov on 2026-10-20. The 14-page PDF is a scan with no text layer; the research agent (an AI) read rendered page images of pages 2 and 4 to 12, and the locators are its transcription of those pages. Pages 1, 3, 13 and 14 were not read. Applies to s5.

Redacted complaint and affidavit in support of an arrest warrant, E.D.N.Y. Case No. 26 MJ 97 (the other case), linked from the release and fetched from justice.gov on 2026-10-20. The 16-page PDF is a scan with no text layer; the research agent (an AI) read rendered page images of pages 1, 5 to 10, 13 and 14, and the locators are its transcription of those pages. Pages 2 to 4, 11, 12, 15 and 16 were not read. Applies to s6.

Event countries: United States. Affected-person countries: United States. Court countries: United States.

The complaints were filed and unsealed in the Eastern District of New York, where law enforcement captured the accounts' content from Brooklyn (s5, s6), and the defendants were arrested in New Jersey and Texas (s1). One complaint says at least one depicted woman resides in the Eastern District of New York (s6), and the U.S. Attorney refers to victims across the United States (s1). Other depicted women's locations are not reported.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-20: Core case (depicted_or_impersonated): two sworn federal complaints allege that AI-generated sexual images and videos of about 90 and at least 50 identifiable women, including non-public women whose ordinary photographs were turned into sexual videos, were published without consent on an adult-content platform, and the FBI affiants, citing conversations with depicted victims, describe the harms such women report. The complaints, the prosecutor's release and two news reports were inspected; the conduct remains alleged and the defendants are presumed innocent. No defendant or victim is named.

People described

Women depicted without consent: approximately 90 in one complaint and at least 50 in the other, including politicians, actresses and musicians and, in the second case, women who are not public figures, among them acquaintances of the accused and recent high-school graduates. Whether any woman appears in both cases is not reported.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 50 people

0 AI participants · 50 other people harmed

Additional affected people are described without a reliable count.

One complaint states the albums 'contained AI pornographic material of at least 50 different female victims' (s6), an explicit lower bound for that case, so 50 are counted. The other complaint gives approximately 90 women (s5), an approximation that is not a documented minimum, and overlap between the cases is unreported, so those women are the unquantified remainder. TechTimes' total of 140 is its own sum and is not used. View counts are audiences and are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#deepfake#ncii#take-it-down-act#criminal-charges#federal-prosecution#united-states

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). US federal complaints allege two men published AI sexual deepfakes of about 90 and at least 50 women, including women who are not public figures. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-edny-deepfake-take-it-down-act

BibTeX

@misc{2026_edny_deepfake_take_it_down_act,
  title = {US federal complaints allege two men published AI sexual deepfakes of about 90 and at least 50 women, including women who are not public figures},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-edny-deepfake-take-it-down-act}
}

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