United States of America v. Cornelius Shannon and Arturo Hernandez

Brooklyn, New York, criminal defense lawyers represent the Defendants charged with with violating the TAKE IT DOWN Act.

Reported by Kent Morlan

Cornelius Shannon and Arturo Hernandez with violations of the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which was enacted one year ago and prohibits the nonconsensual publication of AI-generated digital forgeries (deepfake) pornography. Shannon and Hernandez allegedly posted thousands of images and videos that appeared to depict real people nude and/or engaging in sexual acts. The victims included actresses, singers and political figures. Hernandez also posted hundreds of depictions of non-public figures appearing to engage in sexual acts.

As detailed in court filings, Shannon has published deepfake pornographic material depicting female victims to an image- and video-sharing internet platform designed for creators to share adult and explicit content. Since May 19, 2025, Shannon has published at least 360 albums containing AI deepfake pornography depicting approximately 90 different female victims. The content published by Shannon has been viewed millions of times.

Hernandez is similarly alleged to have published deepfake pornographic material depicting female victims to a website. Since approximately May 19, 2025, Hernandez has published approximately 113 albums on the website which contained deepfake content depicting approximately 50 different identifiable female victims, including individuals who are not public figures. The albums contain non-explicit images of identifiable individuals which morph into deepfake depictions of the individuals in various stages of undress or engaging in sexually explicit conduct. The content published by Hernandez has been viewed nearly a million times.

The Take It Down Act:

As introduced, the bill targeted non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII, sometimes known as "revenge porn"), both real and those created through artificial intelligence or other similar tools. It would criminalize the publication of NCII with up to two years of imprisonment with harsher penalties for images involving minors, require websites and social media services to remove such images at the request from the victim within 48 hours and delete any possible copies of them, while protecting good faith efforts to protect victims of NCII. Enforcement of the bill would be handled by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Criminal enforcement of the law would commence once passed, while services would have a year from passage to introduce reporting systems to handle takedown requests.

See: Take It Down Act

A criminal charge is not proof of guilt.