A 38-year-old Greenwood, Indiana man was arrested last week after police say he used artificial intelligence to strip clothing from photographs of a teenage girl he knew, then told investigators he did it to teach her a lesson. Stewart Steffey was charged with one count of child exploitation, a Level 5 felony, on September 30.
A Teen's Video Tip Launches the Investigation
According to Fox 59, Greenwood police were contacted in March by a teenage victim who said Steffey possessed nude photographs of her. The teen reportedly recorded a video of herself scrolling through Steffey's phone, which investigators say contained numerous nude images of teenage girls and young adult women, including images of at least two underage girls Steffey knew personally. Among those images, per police, was one appearing to show the victim asleep in a blue bathrobe.
Per court documents cited by the outlet, Steffey initially denied that any nude images on his phone were of underage girls. He later said the images of the victim had been altered with AI, and his collection reportedly included numerous images appearing to be AI-generated. Investigators say Steffey allegedly used AI to remove the victim's clothes from photographs and a video.
Steffey Told Police He Wanted to Teach the Victim a Lesson
Per court documents, Steffey said he used the AI-generated images to teach the girls a lesson, telling police he wanted to show the victim what people are capable of and that she learns better by being shown things, Fox 59 reports. The AI tools involved specialize in turning clothed people's photos into nude images, a capability that has drawn mounting scrutiny from child-safety researchers and law enforcement nationwide.
Indiana law makes no exception for artificially created child sexual abuse material, and the Level 5 felony Steffey faces carries up to six years in prison, according to Fox 59's reporting. State statute explicitly classifies child exploitation as a Level 5 felony punishable by one to six years in prison and fines up to $10,000, with definitions that cover digitized or computer-generated depictions of sexual conduct involving anyone under 18, according to Razumich & Associates. Beyond prison time, a conviction often requires inclusion on the Indiana Sex and Violent Offender Registry, the firm says; it cites Indiana Code § 11-8-8-7 for registration duration. The firm also notes potential probation supervision and loss of parental custody rights.
A Case Involving Allegedly Real Victims Amid Shifting AI Case Law
The case lands amid a fast-moving national legal debate over synthetic child imagery. In August 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled in United States v. Anderegg that private in-home possession of purely synthetic AI child imagery depicting non-existent children is protected by First Amendment precedent; production, distribution, and transfer counts remained pending, according to Krieg DeVault. The case differs from that ruling in that the victim and other girls depicted were allegedly real people Steffey knew.
Lawmakers have also moved on the issue: President Trump signed the bipartisan TAKE IT DOWN Act into federal law in May 2025, criminalizing the nonconsensual publication of intimate digital forgeries and requiring platforms to remove reported deepfake imagery within 48 hours, according to the National Association of Attorneys General. In September 2026, a federal judge in Ohio handed down a 15-year sentence in the first federal conviction brought under that law alongside traditional child exploitation charges, as reported by Deandra Grant Law.
A Surge in AI-Generated Abuse Reports Nationwide
The scale of the problem has grown rapidly. CyberTipline reports involving generative AI child sexual abuse material jumped from 4,700 in 2023 to 67,000 in 2024, then surpassed 400,000 in 2025, according to the U.S. Secret Service. Nationally, 47 states have now enacted statutes explicitly criminalizing AI-generated or computer-edited child sexual abuse material, with more than half of those laws passed between 2024 and 2025, per Enough Abuse.
Central Indiana has already seen a similar case this year: Indianapolis police charged Luis Martinez with 10 Level 4 felony counts of child exploitation in September after he allegedly used xAI's Grok tool to generate child sexual abuse material involving victims he personally knew, according to WTHR.
