A New York man faces cyberstalking charges after allegedly sharing AI-generated nude images and fabricated racist messages using fake social media profiles to harass a Georgia college student.
21-year-old Anthony Belford was arraigned June 10 after a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging him with one count of cyberstalking.
Belford and the victim had attended the same college during the 2023-2024 academic year. After the victim transferred to a Georgia college in August 2024, Belford allegedly knew of the move and began targeting the victim there.
According to court documents, between January and March 2025, the defendant created fake Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, X, Strava, and Yahoo accounts to impersonate the victim and distribute AI-generated nude images and spread false claims that the victim had made racist remarks about black students and anti-Muslim statements.
Belford allegedly created a fake LinkedIn profile using an AI-generated nude image of the victim as its profile picture, and also used a spoofed Yahoo email account to send an AI-generated nude image of the victim to the victim’s mother.
The defendant allegedly targeted the victim while attending the same college in the 2023-2024 academic year, but continued doing it even after the victim transferred to a Georgia college in August 2024.
“Belford allegedly waged a lengthy online campaign, hiding behind spoofed social media and email accounts to harass, intimidate, and cause substantial distress to his victim with racist messages and AI-generated nude images,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg.
“Cyberstalking and other forms of online abuse, just like physical violence, can ruin lives and disrupt communities. Victims of such crimes should not suffer in silence, and we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to hold the perpetrators of these crimes accountable using all available tools.”
The Justice Department added that federal law prohibits sharing or threatening to share intimate images (including AI-generated ones) without consent and urged victims to report violations to the FBI and to alert the Federal Trade Commission if online platforms fail to remove such content within 48 hours of a removal request.
More information on how to protect yourself from cyberstalking attempts and stop the spread of images and videos shared online without consent is available on the FTC’s Take It Down platform.
In March, 22-year-old Jamarcus Mosley from Alabama also pleaded guilty to cyberstalking, extortion, and computer fraud charges after hacking into the social media accounts of hundreds of young women.
The same month, 26-year-old Kyle Svara from Illinois also pleaded guilty to hacking nearly 600 women’s Snapchat accounts to steal private nude photos that were later traded or sold online.
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