Two Louisiana Men Arrested for Child Pornography Using Deepfakes

Two Louisiana men have learned the hard way that using AI to generate fake child pornography, deepfakes, is illegal in our state, as both were arrested after several months of investigation by Louisiana State Police.

Louisiana law 73.13 defines deepfakes as the following:

"Deepfake" means any audio or visual media in an electronic format, including any motion picture film or video recording, that is created, altered, or digitally manipulated in a manner that would falsely appear to a reasonable observer to be an authentic record of the actual speech or conduct of the individual or replace an individual's likeness with another individual and depicted in the recording.

Trooper Shelby Mayfield with the Public Affairs Section of Louisiana State Police says the whole investigation started in July of 2024 when several agencies began to team up to look into deepfake videos made of child pornography.

It might be shocking to believe that people would intentionally create child pornography using artificial intelligence, but this is a very real and serious issue.

In the state of Louisiana, this is the section of the law 73.13 that makes it illegal:

Any person who, with knowledge that the material is a deepfake depicting a minor, knowingly advertises, distributes, exhibits, exchanges with, promotes, or sells any sexual material that depicts a minor engaging in sexual conduct shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for not less than ten nor more than thirty years, a fine of not more than fifty thousand dollars, or both. At least ten years of the sentence of imprisonment imposed shall be served without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence.

To date, 37 states have laws on the books that prevent this, with varying degrees of penalties if convicted. Enough Abuse says that more than half of the laws were enacted in the year 2024.

Mayfield says 40-year-old Ryan Glaser of Oscar, Louisiana, had his parole officer look through his phone during a parole visit, which is standard for convicted sex offenders. An arrest was issued for him on four counts of Possession of Unlawful Deepfakes, and he was booked into the West Baton Rouge Prison. Subsequently, they worked to track down who had created this material.

Mayfield says it was 24-year-old Gregory Duncan Jr. of New Roads who investigators say created and gave the material Glaser. Early in this month, February 2025, Duncan was arrested for the Distribution of Unlawful Deepfakes and placed in the Iberville Parish Jail.

The trooper says multiple agencies, in addition to Louisiana State Police's Special Victims Unit, worked on this case,e including the following:

• Homeland Security Investigations
• Baton Rouge Field Office (HSI BRFO)
• Louisiana Probation & Parole West Baton Rouge Office
• United States Marshals Service (USMS)
• LSP Fugitive Apprehension Unit (LSP FAU)
• LSP Criminal Investigations Division, Baton Rouge Field Office (CID BRFO)

Louisiana State Police officials want you to know that you are an integral part of helping them solve cases involving child exploitation and other crimes. So, anytime you have information, you can let them know about it.