‘Abusive and perverted.’ Former Kentucky middle-school teacher sentenced for AI child porn

Fautz was a religion teacher at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic School in Louisville in December 2023 and January 2024 when he sent images of child pornography to an FBI special agent working undercover, federal authorities said.

The investigation showed that Fautz took photos of students from yearbooks and social media and used editing applications to put their faces on photos of women engaged in sexual conduct, then shared them online, according to the court record.

In one case, an FBI agent saw Fautz distribute a photo collage of sexually explicit photos using the faces of a 12- to 15-year-old girl and her mother, according to a sentencing memorandum from Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Spencer McKiness.

In another case, he altered a vacation photo of some students and an adult woman to make it appear they were nude or topless, according to the memo.

Fautz had taught many of the victims, and used his familiarity with them to get their yearbook photos and social media pictures, the prosecutor said.

Fautz distributed child porn from the school and from his home.

The investigation showed he first created fake images of nude middle-school aged girls in 2020, according to the court record.

“Fautz used his position as a trusted middle school teacher to gain access to his students’ likeness and perverted it,” McKiness wrote. “The nature and circumstances of Fautz’s offenses are abusive and perverted.”

Fautz also hurt students by sending their altered images to child porn collectors with their real names included, the prosecutor said.

There were 770 images of child porn on Fautz’s devices when he was arrested in February 2024.

At the time, the Archdiocese of Louisville said Fautz had been a part-time religion teacher and maintenance worker St. Stephen Martyr for nine years, but the sentencing memo said he had been a middle school religion teacher in Louisville for 12 years.

Fautz pleaded guilty to charges of possessing and distributing child pornography, distribution of obscene representations of child sexual abuse and production of an obscene image of child sexual abuse.

McKiness, the prosecutor, said in his sentencing memo that Fautz’s case was the first known example of someone using artificial intelligence and other applications to morph the faces of children on the nude bodies engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

U.S. District Judge David J. Hale sentenced Fautz March 21.