A man has been arrested after he allegedly engaged in inappropriate contact with a female high school student, according to the Gilmer County Sheriff’s Office. Police say they later found AI-generated photos of minors at the school possessed by the suspect.
Authorities say a student at Gilmer High School reported the alleged incident to a school resource officer on Dec. 3, stating Ronald Richardson – a vendor at the school – had asked her to send him pictures through a social media app.
According to police, Richardson, who was restocking the school’s vending machines when the incident occurred, had casual communication with the student on a regular basis at the school for the past year.
Police say Richardson had often given the student free soft drinks, but this was the first time she had been asked to send him pictures.
Richardson has now been charged with multiple counts of sexual exploitation of children, according to authorities, and he was allegedly in possession of AI-generated photos of minors at the high school. He remained in jail as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 29.
“This is the first case in which artificial intelligence (AI) has factored into an investigation like this for the Gilmer Sheriff’s Office,” Sheriff Stacy Nicholson said. “Unfortunately, I doubt it will be the last. All of the sexually explicit (nude) photographs of the minor children that Richardson is alleged to have possessed are actually normal snapshots which he captured from various social media pages and then altered (or had altered) using AI to make the images appear nude.”
The investigation is ongoing as authorities try to “identify many of the minors who are victims in this case.”
The sheriff’s office plans to notify all victims and parents within the next 48 hours. Authorities ask that anyone who has potentially relevant information regarding this case to contact Detective Dan Farnham at at 706-635-4646.
