USA v. Prater

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
EASTERN DIVISION
United States of America
V.
Cody Prater,
Defendant.
Case No. 2:25-cr-56
Judge Michael H. Watson
OPINION AND ORDER
Defendant objects to a subset of the Government's Exhibit 11. Obj., ECF
No. 94. Specifically, he objects to the admissibility of certain of his Telegram chat
messages and moves to exclude the same as irrelevant, unduly prejudicial, and
improper "other acts" evidence. Id. Moreover, Defendant challenges a third-
party-authored message as hearsay. Id.
First, the at-issue messages from Defendant purport to show Defendant
offering to create Al-generated obscene images. Id. at 2. Because Defendant is
charged only with "receipt" and "possession" offenses, he argues, his offer to
produce or distribute is irrelevant, inflammatory, and improper propensity
evidence. Id. at 2-4.
The Court disagrees. Defendant's offer to create Al-generated obscene
materials is relevant to, at least, his motive, intent, absence of mistake, and lack
of accident, all of which are admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b).
For example, messages showing Defendant's familiarity with certain technology
are necessarily distinct from messages showing Defendant's intent to receive
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and possess Al-generated child sexual abuse material ("CSAM"). As such, the
relevance of the at-issue messages is not substantially outweighed by the risk of
unfair prejudice, confusion of the issue, or any of the other Rule 403 factors.
Defendant's objection as to these messages is OVERRULED, and the parties
are ORDERED to confer and submit a proposed limiting instruction addressing
Rule 404(b) to be read to the jury contemporaneous with the admission of the
messages.
Second, Defendant challenges, as hearsay, a message authored by an
unnamed third party that states, in part, "Ever since it was discovered that SD 1.5
was knowingly trained on CSAM, every site's been dumping content, and people
are expecting a big legal crack down on Al some time next year as a political
selling point. " GOV. Ex. 11(b)-Google pixel phone Axiom Tagged-Chat preview
report-Telegram Messages-7_11_2024 (second).
This objection is likewise OVERRULED. Contrary to Defendant's
assertion, the Government is plainly not offering the statement for the truth of
whether stable diffusion was trained on CSAM but rather to show Defendant's
state of mind in allegedly receiving and possessing Al-generated obscene visual
representations of child sexual abuse. Specifically, it shows his knowledge that
stable diffusion can create CSAM, which makes it more likely than without the
evidence that he knew that the stable-diffusion-created images that he received
and possessed depicted sexually explicit conduct and were obscene. As it is not
offered for its truth, it is not hearsay. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(c)(2).
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For these reasons, Defendant's motion is OVERRULED in its entirety, and
the Clerk shall terminate ECF No. 94
IT IS SO ORDERED.
I HAEL H. WATSON, JUDGE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
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