A court’s ruling on AI-generated child sexual abuse material could lead to complications in Missouri investigations
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A recent decision by a federal appeals court judge to dismiss a charge for 'possession of virtual child sexual abuse material' has raised concerns for one Missouri advocate.
Steven Anderegg was originally charged with producing, distributing and possessing child sex abuse materials and sending the material to a minor. Anderegg allegedly produced these images using Stable Diffusion, a generative artificial intelligence.
In October 2023, court documents say Meta, reported an Instagram user sent a direct message with images of potential child sex abuse material to a minor to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Meta also noted that the image appeared to be AI-generated.
Law enforcement linked the account to Anderegg and found message history of him allegedly explaining to the minor how he had created the images by inputting different sexually inspired prompts. Anderegg's legal team referred to the supreme court's decision from of Stanley v. Georgia which ruled to protect a person's ability possess obscenity in the privacy of their home as their First Amendment right.
In the decision, the judge reasoned that he is at the whim of the Supreme Court's precedents in his decision, but also shared concern of his own.
"Given the relentless advancement in artificial intelligence models, we have some concerns about the lines these cases draw, but we are not free to redraw them ourselves," the judge wrote.
If this case were to continue to the Supreme Court, Executive Director for Missouri Network Against Child Abuse Jessica Seitz said it could dissolve legislative protections already in place at the state level around the country.
As of August, 46 states have enacted laws that criminalize AI-generated child sex abuse material, while four states and Washington D.C. have not.
In Missouri, the definition of child pornography also includes "computer-generated images" that appear to depict children involved in sexual acts. The offense of possession of child pornography includes both possessing images of identifiable children as well as obscene material portraying a minor.
Seitz also said if the high court upholds the appeals court ruling, it could complicate police investigations, prosecuting those cases and convicting the criminals involved. Seitz said if AI-generated child sex abuse materials is less criminalized investigators will have to spend more time proving where it was generated and stored.
In December 2025, a Columbia man pleaded guilty to keeping AI-generated child sex abuse materials on his cellphone. Charles Hooton, 64, of Columbia, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Court documents say he allegedly admitted to using an AI app to generate the explicit images. Police found more than 130 AI-generated images on Hooton’s phone.
