A man arrested by Chandler Police officers, William Powderly, has been indicted for possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
It is the first case involving AI-generated CSAM to be charged by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
Chandler Police began investigating Powderly after receiving a CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He was found to have numerous images of CSAM, including two where AI was used to swap a real child victim’s face onto sexually explicit images of another young female.
A grand jury indicted Powderly on 10 counts of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, a Class Two Felony and Dangerous Crime Against Children.
Last year, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office supported HB2678 — sponsored by Rep. Julie Willoughby—which made the punishment the same for sex abuse images of real child victims and AI-generated or digitally altered images that are indistinguishable from real minors. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Katie Hobbs and took effect on September 26, 2025.
There are sickos who use AI to generate images without involving real children at all. While I find their impulses utterly abhorrent, they are managing their perversions without creating victims, so I’m willing to live and let live within those boundaries. But, according to the article – and the AZDI has been misleading in a few stories recently – that’s not what happened here. He used AI to move the face of a real child to the body of another real child. AI or not, this deviant needs to be removed from polite society, permanently.
Satan walks our streets openly now.