Updated: Apr 18
By Barbara A. Preston | April 16, 2026 (updated at 1:36 pm)
A 17-year-old Belle Mead resident was arrested at his home recently and charged with allegedly creating and distributing non-consensual deepfake nudes of at least 32 girls, according to reliable sources. Some of the victims were Montgomery High School (MHS) students.
The defendant is a senior at MHS.
Montgomery Township police officers assisted NJ State Police in the execution of a search warrant of the boy’s home on March 17, however, the local police could not comment further to The Montgomery News because they said it is not their jurisdiction. The NJ State Police Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force is leading the active, ongoing investigation.
The Montgomery News spoke briefly by telephone with ICAC Det. Fischetti, but he said he was not authorized to comment on the case or to provide the name of a person who could comment.
A letter from Somerset County Prosecutor John P. McDonald was sent to the Montgomery Township victims’ parents, dated April 1. The letter basically invited parents to a court hearing at the Somerset County Court House on May 13 at 8:30 am. It also identified the name of the Montgomery juvenile. (The Montgomery News is withholding the names of the known victims and the alleged perpetrator (because he is a juvenile).
In New Jersey, the manufacturing and distribution of AI-generated Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) is a severe criminal offense, and can be treated with the same, or higher, severity as traditional CSAM, resulting in first-degree or second-degree felony charges.
Prosecutor McDonald’s letter stated his office may make a plea offer to the juvenile offender through his family’s attorney. “If the juvenile offender enters a guilty plea, the need for a trial is eliminated.”
Victims have the right to attend the hearing, however, they are not required to attend unless subpoenaed, he wrote to the parents. “During this proceeding, the juvenile offender may accept the plea offer and be adjudicated. If this occurs, [each] victim would have the right to give a Victim Impact Statement (VIS) in court at that time.”
A VIS is a written or oral statement allowing crime victims to describe the physical, emotional, and/or financial harm caused by an offender to a judge before sentencing. It is said to humanize the victim(s), aid in rehabilitation, can influence sentencing, and provides closure.
The Montgomery News reached out to the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office Acting Chief Meredith McKay. She responded, “This matter was investigated by the [NJ State Police] NJSP Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Please reach out to the NJSP for further comment.”
A Montgomery parent reached out to The Montgomery News on April 10 after her daughter was identified as one of the victims. The parent shared a registered letter she received from the Somerset County prosecutor on Saturday, April 4.
After receiving the letter, state police detectives reached out to the parent and revealed that deepfake photos of her daughter had been posted on an app called Discord. The app is marketed to teens, ages 13 and up, as a “safe” place to have group chats that are “all fun & games.” In this case, the app did not live up to its promise, leading to a state police investigation and actual discord.
Detectives met with the parent and daughter in their Montgomery home and shared censored photographs of the teenage daughter. One photo was of her daughter and friends who had been posing in pretty dresses at a Sweet Sixteen party. The image was altered into what the state labels child sexual abuse material using A1. Another image of girls enjoying a day at the beach met the same fate.
“I felt awful for my daughter and for her friends. She was upset to see her photos,” the parent said, noting that the pictures were taken last year. “I have no idea how these images are created, but they look real.”
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Digitally altered images, deepfakes, can have devastating consequences for teenage girls, according to Natasha Singer, who wrote an article titled “Teen Girls Confront an Epidemic of Deepfake Nudes in Schools,” (The New York Times, 2024).
“Child sexual exploitation experts say the use of nonconsensual, AI-generated images to harass, humiliate and bully young women can harm their mental health, reputations, and physical safety as well as pose risks to their college and career prospects,” Singer wrote. Schools are often at ground zero of this nationwide epidemic, even though the crimes mostly take place off school property and on social media sites.
Montgomery Superintendent Mary E. McLoughlin told The Montgomery News during a telephone call on April 14 that the “school cannot comment on an active, ongoing state police investigation.”
She did say there were no deepfake crimes “at school or on school grounds." She added that MHS officials had a Cyber Safety training program in the works before officials heard of the recent charges against one of its students. The school had already been in contact with the NJ State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to have officers to provide training on Cyber Safety at the school.
This week, the Montgomery Township School District Digital Wellness Committee emailed a letter to parents inviting them to an upcoming presentation on Wednesday, April 22, from 6:30-8:30 pm at Montgomery Upper Middle School titled, “Beyond the Screen: Parenting in the Digital Age—The Conversation Continues.”
Cory Delgado, Montgomery's Director of School Counseling & Student Wellness, sent the email, writing that the presentation “builds on the success from last year’s event.”
“The impact of screens and technology on our children remains a hot topic,” Delgado wrote. “Laws, guidelines, and technology are changing rapidly, and we want you to be able to make informed decisions regarding your child’s phone and technology use. At this special event, we will discuss the cumulative impact of screen time and technology on our children’s social, emotional, and mental well-being and offer a variety of interactive workshops designed to help you navigate the challenging journey of technology and parenting.”
At the event, Montgomery school district personnel will lead workshops focusing on timely topics such as: Artificial Intelligence (AI), benefits of tech-free play, the psychology of gaming, digital citizenship, phones/social media, changing laws, and overall impacts on mental health.
Schools in Westfield, NJ, and Beverly Hills, Calif, were among the first public schools in the nation to acknowledge deepfake incidents. The details of the cases — described in district communications with parents, school board meetings, legislative hearings, and court filings — illustrate the variability of school responses, according to The New York Times reporter Singer, who is at the forefront of reporting on these issues.
Taking a staunch public stance. “When Beverly Hills administrators learned in February that eighth-grade boys at Beverly Vista Middle School had created explicit images of 12- and 13-year-old female classmates, they quickly sent a message — subject line: “Appalling Misuse of Artificial Intelligence” — to all district parents, staff, and middle and high school students. The message urged community members to share information with the school to help ensure that students’ “disturbing and inappropriate” use of A.I. “stops immediately.”
In the 2023 Westfield incident, the Westfield school principal had sent an email to parents to make them aware of a situation that resulted in ... "significant worry and concern amongst the student body of Westfield High School." In that case, students had brought to their teachers attention that other students had used artificial intelligence to create pornographic images from original photos.
"There was a great deal of concern about who had images created of them and if they were shared," the Westfield principal wrote. "We believe that any created images have been deleted and are not being circulated. This is a very serious incident. We are continuing to investigate and will inform individuals and families of students involved once the investigation is complete."
Westfield also made counseling available for all affected students and encouraged them to return to class when they felt able to do so. Additionally, the Westfield PD had been made aware of our investigation. The school told parents/guardians who thought their child may have been a victim of in relation to the incident to please report the matter to Westfield Police.
The Westfield principal's message sent to parents said: "I wanted to make you aware of the situation, as, in addition to harming the students involved and disrupting the school day, it is critically important to talk with your children about their use of technology and what they are posting, saving and sharing on social media. New technologies have made it possible to falsify images and students need to know the impact and damage those actions can cause to others.
"We will continue to educate your children on the importance of responsible use of technology and hope you reinforce these messages at home."
In fact, it was the Westfield parent Dorota Mani and her daughter, Francesca Mani, (14 at the time), who demanded accountability and called for federal legislation to address AI-generated pornographic images.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns that child sexual abuse material (CSAM) created with content manipulation technologies, to include generative artificial intelligence (AI), is illegal.
Federal law now prohibits the production, advertisement, transportation, distribution, receipt, sale, access with intent to view, and possession of any CSAM including realistic computer-generated images.
A recent article titled “Deepfake Nudes Are Haunting America’s Teens,” published on April 8 in The New York Times cites “three Jane Does in Tennessee who are part of a class-action lawsuit filed in March against xAI, Elon Musk’s A.I. company.
“The lawsuit asserts that doctored images ‘showed [a teen’s] entire body, including her genitals, without any clothes. A video depicted her undressing until she was entirely nude.” These scenes were created, in part, using this teenager’s face from her yearbook photo.”
Jessica Grouse, who has been writing about the creation of deepfake nudes of minors for two years, says, “It arguably much worse now that A.I. image generation tools are ubiquitous, and the images they create are even more realistic.”
The Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC)- Somerset County Prosecutor's Office
Somerset County ICAC is one of 46 regional Task Forces within the state and is responsible for conducting investigations of offenders that use computers and computer technology for the purpose of exploiting children.
View the NJ ICAC Task Force video titled: Together for a Safer Internet.
Contact The Montgomery News editor if you have a news tip. Email: editor@themontynews.com.
