COLUMBUS — A man who was accused of cyberstalking his exes and using AI to generate obscene material has learned his sentence.
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James Strahler II, 37, of Columbus, was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 years in prison for cybercrimes that included both real and AI-generated sexually explicit images and threats of violence to numerous victims.
Strahler pleaded guilty in April to cyberstalking, producing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse and publication of digital forgeries.
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The conviction for publishing digital forgeries is part of the Take It Down Act, a law enacted in 2025 that prohibits non-consensual online publication of intimate visual depictions and AI forgeries.
“I’m proud of my Office’s prosecution of this case—the first in the Nation under the Take It Down Act,” U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II said. “Thanks to this new law, we can now show offenders like Strahler that they will not get away with producing and posting disturbing AI-generated content. [Tuesday’s] sentence should serve as a warning that significant prison time will result from this repulsive conduct.”
Strahler had installed more than 24 AI platforms and more than 100 AI web-based models on his phone.
He reportedly used telephone calls, voicemails, text messages, and web postings to engage in a campaign of harassment against his victims.
From December 2024 until June 2025, Strahler sent harassing messages to at least six adult female victims. These messages included nude images of the victims, both real and AI-generated.
Strahler used AI to create pornographic videos depicting at least one adult victim engaged in sex acts with her father before distributing the videos to the victim’s coworkers.
He also messaged the mothers of the adult females and demanded nude photos of them, threatening to circulate explicit or obscene images he created of their daughters if they did not comply.
He often called the victims and left voicemails of him masturbating or threatening rape. He referred to the victims’ specific home addresses in his threats.
Strahler also posted AI-generated obscenities he created of children. He generated these files using the faces of minor boys from his community.
He would then morph the faces of the minor boys onto the bodies of other adults or children and created videos that depicted the boys engaged in sex acts.
Strahler specifically created AI-generated obscenity of the minor boys having sex with their mothers and/or grandmothers.
Strahler created more than 700 images of both real victims and animated persons and posted them to a website dedicated to child sexual abuse.
An additional 2,400 images and videos on his phone were flagged as depicting nudity, morphed child sexual abuse material, or violence.
Strahler’s criminal conduct was initially reported to the Hilliard Police Department and the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office before being referred to the FBI.
“This case demonstrates the importance of taking these types of crimes seriously and working together to protect victims and hold offenders accountable,” Hilliard Police Chief Mike Woods said. “We are proud of the work our officers and detectives did to help bring this case forward and grateful to our federal and local partners for seeing it through to justice.”
Strahler was arrested on federal charges in June 2025.
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