Mason Teen Adjudicated Delinquent After Deepfake, Child Sexual Abuse Material Found; Ordered To Treatment

A 17-year-old student at Mason High School admitted to possessing child sexual abuse material and AI-generated sexually explicit images of classmates and was adjudicated delinquent on July 29 by Warren County Juvenile Court Judge Joseph Kirby.

Charges and Plea. The teen entered a plea of admission to 52 counts in juvenile court — a process that differs from an adult criminal conviction. The first 26 counts involved possessing child sexual abuse material; the remaining counts were for distributing videos of himself masturbating to between five and 10 recipients. Prosecutors dropped other charges that had been connected to creating the AI-generated images.

Investigation Findings. Prosecutor John Rye told the court investigators reviewed roughly 70,000 sexual-content files recovered from the teen's phone, saying many files involved "prepubescent females." Rye said approximately 250 of those files depicted children.

Deepfakes And The Law. Charges related to creating AI-generated deepfakes were dismissed because the teen had not disseminated those images. Judge Kirby noted that under current Ohio law, criminal liability for deepfakes generally requires distribution. He said he hoped the legislature would close that gap so creation alone could be prosecutable in the future. In a separate Mason High case earlier this year, prosecutors also dropped charges after concluding the allegedly created images predated a state law banning sexually explicit deepfakes.

Warren County Common Pleas Court Probate and Juvenile court Judge Joseph W. Kirby presides over a court hearing for a juvenile defendant, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, at Warren Coutny Juvenile Court in Lebanon, Oh. The juvenile has been arrested for the use and sharing of AI generated photos of at least seven underage classmates.

Defense And Family Statement. Defense attorney Ryan Nelson said the teen traded self-made masturbatory videos in exchange for compressed porn files and that some recipients, older than the defendant, pressured him to send videos. "He is both simultaneously the defendant and the aggressor and the victim," Nelson told the judge. The student's father said his son had been preyed upon and groomed online and characterized the AI images of classmates as produced with "no harm, no intent" and "only for his own use."

"It would download all of them to my phone. I only saved the adult pornography," the student told the court.

Judge's Response And Sentence. Judge Kirby criticized the parents for permitting broad, unsupervised phone access and warned about the consequences of uncontrolled device use for juveniles. The court banned the student's use of electronics, social media and his cellphone, ordered treatment for problematic sexual behavior and committed him to the Mary Haven Youth Center, finding home-based treatment would not be in his best interest. A planned transfer to the Department of Youth Services was suspended.

Broader Concerns. Detective Andrew Herlinger of the Mason Police Department said officers have seen a spike in this type of activity. Both the defense and the student's father emphasized his prior academic success — a reported 4.1 GPA and acceptance to the University of Ohio as a film major — while the judge stressed rehabilitation to help the teen return to a productive life.

This report is based on court records and statements from prosecutors, defense counsel and law enforcement as reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer.