Brisbane court hears case over sexualized deepfakes of schoolgirls and school staff

At the Brisbane District Court in Australia, Antonio Rotondo pleaded not guilty in a case involving sexualized deepfakes depicting current and former students and staff members of one school. He faces more than a dozen charges, including 11 counts of stalking and five counts of distributing intimate images.

Rotondo also denies charges of distributing child sexual exploitation material. The course of the hearings is reported by ABC News Australia.

The prosecution's case

Prosecutor Ben Jackson told jurors that in September 2023, Rotondo, who was living in the Philippines at the time, sent an email containing numerous images to several recipients, including two private schools in Brisbane.

According to the prosecutor, the images showed students and staff members of one school whose clothing had been digitally removed or replaced with revealing underwear. Jurors also heard that similar images of models who took part in Brisbane Fashion Week were sent to a woman associated with the event.

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In addition, jurors were told that 16 such images were uploaded to a website which, according to the prosecution, was operated by Rotondo.

Conversation with police

The prosecutor said that after arriving in Australia in October 2023, Rotondo gave police a recorded interview. According to Jackson, the defendant admitted that he used the relevant email account, sent the images and controlled the website on which they were posted.

The prosecutor also said that Rotondo admitted editing the images using a website and described creating deepfakes as his hobby. According to the prosecution, he told police that he found it funny and compared the ability to digitally remove clothing to X-ray vision glasses. The trial is ongoing.