{"id":62389,"date":"2025-12-16T15:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62389\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T15:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:14:07","slug":"bethlehem-man-sentenced-under-pennsylvanias-new-ai-child-porn-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62389\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethlehem man sentenced under Pennsylvania\u2019s new AI child porn law"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Bethlehem<\/a> man is among the first to be sentenced under a Pennsylvania law<\/a> passed last year, making it a crime to possess AI-generated child <\/a>sex abuse material.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kristie M. Marks sentenced 35-year-old Adam Erdman to two years, four months to 10 years.<\/p>\n

Erdman in September pleaded guilty<\/a> to felony possessing child sex abuse material. He faced a possible sentence of 5 to 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n

Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan announced the sentencing in a news conference Monday afternoon. The DA credited U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who introduced the new legislation and state Sen. Tracy Pennycuick, who championed the final version of the law last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore this law was passed, the use of AI to generate child sexual abuse materials went unpunished,\u201d Holihan said. \u201cProsecutors like me need legislation like this to arrest and convict the criminals who use evolving technology to victimize others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macungie-based attorney Michael Ira Stump, representing Erdman, couldn\u2019t immediately be reached for comment Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

Bethlehem police on March 31 were called by Erdman\u2019s estranged wife, who reported finding three AI-generated nude images of juvenile girls on his personal computer.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Erdman downloaded photos of the children on vacation from their parent\u2019s social media account, and then used artificial intelligence photo-editing software to make the children appear naked.<\/p>\n

Erdman was charged on April 17.<\/p>\n

The case was investigated by Bethlehem Police Det. Stephen Ewald and was prosecuted by Lehigh County Senior Deputy District Attorney Sarah K. Heimbach. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Bethlehem man is among the first to be sentenced under a Pennsylvania law passed last year, making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":{"0":"post-62389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}