A 46-year-old Bexar County man already facing an online solicitation charge is back in custody after investigators say they found AI-generated child sexual abuse images on his cellphone. James Kenneth Rogers II was rearrested Thursday on a new second-degree felony charge of possession or promotion of child pornography, months after his original arrest this past summer.
The Bexar County Sheriff's Office Organized Crime Group tracked Rogers down using an ankle monitor he was wearing after bonding out following his July arrest, according to KABB. Rogers was originally taken into custody after the U.S. Secret Service notified the Bexar County Sheriff's Office Human Exploitation Unit that he was communicating on the anonymous social media app Whisper with someone he believed to be a 16-year-old girl, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Investigators say Rogers moved the conversation to text messages and repeatedly invited the undercover deputy posing as a minor to his home before he was charged with online solicitation of a minor and possession of mushrooms.
Hoodline reported at the time that Rogers is a retired U.S. Army veteran who lived in northwest Bexar County, and that deputies executed the original arrest warrant at his home without incident following a weekslong undercover sting. Investigators seized his cellphone during that arrest and later obtained a warrant to search it forensically.
What Deputies Found on the Phone
According to Sheriff Javier Salazar, the forensic search turned up images of child pornography on Rogers' phone, including one depicting a young girl in her teens who was an acquaintance of one of Rogers' family members. Salazar said the girl was not a victim of physical abuse by Rogers, but the images and videos depicting sexual activity involving her appeared to be AI-generated. Investigators have since contacted the girl and are working to determine whether there may be other victims, though the sheriff's office said it has received no actual outcry from a victim at this point.
The new charge against Rogers is a second-degree felony that carries 2 to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Under Texas Penal Code Section 43.26, possession or promotion of child pornography is subject to possible enhancements in some cases, according to FindLaw. Texas law broadly defines visual material to include digital files and media displayed on a device screen.
A Legal Gray Area Around AI-Generated Images
Cases involving synthetic abuse imagery sit at a complicated legal intersection. In 2025, Texas enacted Senate Bill 20, expanding state child exploitation laws to explicitly criminalize computer- and artificial-intelligence-generated visual material depicting or appearing to depict minors, closing a loophole for synthetic media where no physical child was directly photographed. As of September 2026, 47 states have enacted statutes criminalizing AI-generated or computer-edited child sexual abuse material, according to a national tracking study by Enough Abuse, while three states and Washington, D.C. still have pending legislation or lack explicit coverage.
Defense attorneys and legal scholars note that purely synthetic AI imagery has faced First Amendment challenges tracing back to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 ruling in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, which struck down federal prohibitions on virtual material where no actual minor was depicted or harmed in production, per Deandra Grant Law.
Part of a Growing Regional Pattern
The Rogers case follows a string of similar arrests across South Texas this year. In May, Texas Department of Public Safety agents and the FBI arrested a Carrizo Springs man after seizing more than 900 files containing AI-generated child sexual abuse images created from photos of South Texas children, a case involving the use of AI to create child sexual abuse images from photos of South Texas children.
Ongoing Investigation
The Bexar County Sheriff's Office Human Exploitation Unit works in partnership with federal authorities including the U.S. Secret Service, and the two agencies have conducted approximately 29 joint arrests targeting online child exploitation in the region, according to KENS 5. Investigators say they are working to determine whether there are additional victims. The Bexar County Sheriff's Office is asking anyone with information to call 210-335-6000, submit a tip through the agency's app, or email [email protected].
