A Johnson City 18-year-old takes plea deal in AI exploitation case

JONESBOROUGH — An 18-year-old from Johnson City pleaded guilty to using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate pornographic images of underage classmates and coworkers in county circuit court Friday. Christian Zarate pleaded guilty to 13 out of the 41 felony counts he was charged with last December. The 13 felony charges include two counts of attempt to commit aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of attempt to commit sexual exploitation of a minor over 50 images and 10 counts of unlawful photography for sexual arousal or gratification. He will serve six years of probation. Zarate was ordered to have no contact with the victims, no access to social media or AI generating domains and must complete sexual offender programs during that period. Zarate will also be required to register as a sex offender for life, will be under community supervision for life, provide DNA samples to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and specimen samples for the purpose of HIV testing. Zarate was a minor at the time of his arrest, but an April city juvenile court hearing determined he would be tried as an adult after the court found probable cause for all original charges, according to his affidavit. A $50 court cost is associated with all 13 counts, Washington County Circuit Court Judge Lisa Rice said. With all 13 counts being felony charges, he will no longer be able to vote, carry a firearm and will be subject to any other repercussions related to felony charges. If Zarate violates his probation, he will be subject to serve all of his sentence in prison, in addition to being fined. Rice asked the prosecutor to put on the record the factual basis of the plea deal due to the nature of the offenses. The prosecutor said a report was made in early December from a victim who had received tips of "inappropriate AI generated photos on a Discord channel" which led to Johnson City Police Department to open an investigation. The investigation resulted in searching Zarate's phone where investigators found over 50 photos — 28 were AI generated — of 10 known victims, according to the prosecutor. In addition to the more than 50 images, more than 20 sexually explicit photos and videos of minors and 10 "close up videos of two of his classmates' clothed intimate areas that were taken for sexual gratification purposes" were also found on his device, according to the affidavit.