Two teenage boys who used artificial intelligence to create fake nude photos of their classmates at an exclusive private school in Pennsylvania were placed on probation Wednesday after dozens of victims described the images’ traumatic effect on them.
The boys were 14 years old at the time. They admitted this month that they had taken about 350 photos, showing at least 59 girls under the age of 18, along with other victims who have not yet been identified.
Authorities and the girls themselves said the boys took photos of the girls from school photos, yearbooks, and Instagram, TikTok and FaceTime chats in 2023 and 2024, and transformed them into adult photos depicting nudity or sexual activity.
More than 100 students and parents from Lancaster Country Day School were in court to hear victims describe the trauma of having to identify their faces in pornographic images to investigators. Juvenile proceedings in Pennsylvania are normally closed, but are opened by a judge, providing an unusual opportunity for the community to be seen and heard.
The girls described the fallout — anxiety attacks, loss of confidence, problems concentrating on schoolwork, and fear that the images might one day appear in unexpected ways.
The two accused stood stony-faced the entire time, surrounded by their lawyers and guardians, as they were called “child molesters”, meaning “sick, twisted” and deviants.
“I will never understand why they did that,” one victim told Judge Leonard Brown, adding that it “destroyed my innocence.”
“How painful it is to bring up these feelings over and over again,” one teen told Brown. Another choked on tears as she criticized one of the accused for expressing “fake sympathy” while the girls confided in him their pain, before he knew of his involvement. Another said that all of her friends had moved schools, and that she “needs trauma therapy to be able to walk around my neighborhood.”
The judge said he did not hear the boys apologise
The defendants declined several opportunities to comment before the judge, who said he had not heard either boy take responsibility or apologize.
“This has been an unfortunate, long and torturous process for everyone involved,” said Heidi Freese, defense attorney for one of the defendants. “There were very interesting underlying legal issues surrounding the charges in this case and they will be decided on a different day in a different case.”
Lawyers for his co-defendant emailed a statement late Wednesday saying he was “deeply remorseful for his role in the AI-generated images and very sorry for any harm he caused.”
Defense attorneys Adam Szilagyi and Christopher Sarno wrote that the photos, which the attorneys said their client did not intend for them to be released to the public, “contained nudity but did not contain any representation of sexual behavior or activity.”
They said their client did not use “any AI generator himself and did not post any of the images.” Szilagyi said in a follow-up text that his client was responsible as part of the conspiracy and that both boys “collected and exchanged the original photos that were placed at the generator.”
Brown ordered each of them to perform 60 hours of community service, have no contact with the victims and pay an unspecified amount of restitution. If they don’t have any additional legal problems, the case could be expunged after two years, Brown said.
When he imposed his sentence, Brown said that if they were adults, they would likely head to state prison. He said they should “take this opportunity to really examine themselves.”
The rise of artificial intelligence has led to deepfakes
The resolution of the Pennsylvania case comes days after three Tennessee teens sued Elon Musk’s xAI company, alleging the company’s Grok tools turned their real-life photos into sexually explicit ones. The high school students are seeking class-action status to represent what the lawsuit says are thousands of people who were similarly victimized when they were minors.
The scandal at Penn State led to a student protest, criminal charges against the teens and the departure of leaders at the school, which says it has about 600 K-12 students, average class sizes of just 12 kids, and an “endowment of more than $25 million.”
Nadeem Bezar, a Philadelphia attorney who represents at least 10 of the victims, said Tuesday that he expects to file suit “against the school and anyone else who we believe bears responsibility for creating and disseminating these deepfake.”
He said he has not seen the photos yet, but expects the legal process will determine “exactly when, where and how the school knew, how the boys created these images, what platforms they used to create these images and how they were disseminated.”
As artificial intelligence has become more available and powerful, lawmakers across the country have passed laws aimed at banning deepfakes.
President Donald Trump signed the Take it Down Act last year, making it illegal to post intimate photos including deepfake photos without consent, and requiring websites and social media sites to remove such material within 48 hours of notifying the victim.
Forty-six states now have laws addressing deepfakes, with legislation introduced in the remaining four states — Alaska, Missouri, New Mexico and Ohio — according to consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.