A man who made and distributed sexualised deepfake images of current and former students and staff at Brisbane high schools has been found guilty on all 17 counts, in one of the first completed prosecutions of its kind in Australia.
A jury at the Brisbane District Court convicted Antonio Rotondo, 56, of 11 counts of stalking, five counts of distributing intimate images and one count of distributing child exploitation material, the ABC reported. He had pleaded not guilty to all of them. The jury deliberated for several hours.
The offending took place in September 2023, while Rotondo was living in the Philippines. Using a website, he digitally altered publicly available photographs of several women and girls to remove their clothing or replace it with lingerie.
He then emailed the images to a range of recipients. One image, of a 13-year-old girl, was sent to her school. He also emailed altered photographs of women who had taken part in a Brisbane Fashion Week event to another woman involved in the same event. More than a dozen of the images were uploaded to a website.
He was arrested a month later, after travelling to the Gold Coast.
“Funny”, and a “hobby”
In a police interview played to the jury, Rotondo admitted sending the emails and uploading the images. Asked why, he said he did it because it was “funny”, and described it as a “hobby”.
He also told officers that “you cannot stop deepfakes”, and that because the software to make them exists they must be “acceptable to a percentage of community”.
The defence the jury rejected
Rotondo represented himself. To convict him on some of the charges, the jury had to be satisfied that his conduct caused distress to the complainants.
In his closing address he argued there was reasonable doubt that some had suffered serious emotional harm, because they had never seen the images.
“They didn’t see that image so it’s not possible for them to have a psychological problem with that image,” he said.
He also argued there was insufficient evidence that he controlled the website.
The jury convicted him on every count.
What the complainants said
Several complainants described the effect of the images in police interviews played to the court.
One woman said she was “very distressed”. Another said she felt “extremely violated” and that her “trust is gone” in general society.
“I’ve since significantly self-censored how I show up, how I present publicly,” she said.
What happens next
Rotondo was remanded in custody. His sentencing hearing is listed for Wednesday.