‘Easy’: Deepfake predator targets Brisbane schoolgirls and models

Targets of a man’s deepfake exploitation campaign preying on women and girls, including a 13-year-old child, will not let the vile acts stand in the way of life, a court has been told.

At the beginning of his Brisbane District Court trial in August, Antonio Rotondo pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of stalking, five counts of distributing intimate images and one count of distributing child exploitation material relating to a 13-year-old girl.

“I’m scared of a future where deepfake pornography is normalised for myself, for my daughters and for girls and women more broadly,” one of Rotondo’s 17 victims wrote to the court at his sentencing.

“Women and girls should not have to share less, dress differently, avoid photographs or withdraw from public life in order to protect themselves.”

During the trial, the court was told the now convicted child sex offender targeted women and teenage girls, using image manipulator software to alter photos of his victims, removing their clothes or replacing them with lingerie.

Among his victims were Brisbane Fashion Week models and staff and students from an elite private girls’ school.

Many of the victims said the photographs Rotondo exploited commemorated special moments from schooling milestones, spiritual events and career highlights.

“My heart breaks to think that this has happened to many other girls,” one girl told the court in a statement.

Rotondo emailed the insidious images to Brisbane Fashion Week organisers, the girls’ school and private boys’ schools including Brisbane Grammar School and St Joseph’s Gregory Terrace.

He published a large swathe of the images online, with many of his victims expressing fear over how widely shared the false depictions had become.

Many of the women and girls told the court they felt “humiliated, violated, powerless” by Rotondo and had struggled with ongoing mental health and social struggles.

Some victims said they began self-censoring after being told of the images.

“The experience violated my dignity and my sense of personal safety,” one victim wrote to the court.

Rotondo told police, in an interview played to the court at trial, his conduct should be expected in the modern age.