Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have charged two men with creating and distributing AI-generated explicit images without the consent of the people depicted. Arturo Hernandez, 20, and Cornelius Shannon, 51, were arrested on May 20, 2026, in what appears to be among the first federal prosecutions under the TAKE IT DOWN Act.
The timing is hard to miss. The law was signed exactly one year and one day before the arrests, on May 19, 2025.
What the TAKE IT DOWN Act actually does
The first prong is criminal: publishing, or threatening to publish, AI-generated explicit depictions of identifiable individuals without their consent is now a federal offense carrying up to two years in prison per violation.
The second prong targets platforms. Starting May 19, 2026, online services that host user content must remove flagged non-consensual intimate imagery within 48 hours of receiving a valid takedown request. Failure to comply opens the door to enforcement actions from the Federal Trade Commission.
