Reed v. Tuck et al

In March 2026, plaintiff Ava Reed filed a civil suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against former partner Jordan Tuck and several unknown defendants. Reed alleged that Tuck used artificial intelligence to create non-consensual deepfake intimate videos of her and distributed them across social media and adult platforms. Her complaint asserted claims for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and cyberstalking, while also requesting a criminal referral for violations of the federal Violence Against Women Act. The case rapidly became a focal point in the national debate over AI-generated sexual abuse material and the legal gaps in victim protection.

By June 2026, the district court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss, allowing all core claims to proceed into discovery. The court also granted a temporary restraining order compelling the removal of the deepfake material from identified websites. Concurrently, the U.S. Attorney’s Office opened a parallel criminal investigation into potential federal cyberstalking and computer fraud charges.

Whether the non-consensual creation and distribution of AI-generated intimate images constitutes criminal cyberstalking and defamation under existing federal and state law, and to what extent digital platforms bear civil liability for hosting or failing to remove such content.

The case intensified calls for federal AI regulation and directly contributed to the reintroduction of the bipartisan Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act in Congress. Major technology platforms expedited policy revisions on synthetic media, and state legislatures began advancing bills to criminalize the non-consensual dissemination of digitally altered intimate content, strengthening protections for victims of technology-facilitated sexual violence.