A local man faces two felonies after he was charged this week with child pornography.

Eric D. Hermann, 32, of Waterloo, was charged Monday with possession of child porn (victim under 13) and obscene depiction of purported child. 

The first charge, a Class 2 felony, alleges Hermann possessed an image on April 6 depicting a minor child actually engaging in a sexual act.  

The second charge, a Class 1 felony, alleges that Hermann “reproduced an obscene depiction of a purported child” on the same date.

The case is unique in Monroe County as it uses an amendment to Illinois state statute that took effect Jan. 1 as a way to combat the emergence of realistic, AI-based pornographic material with minor children as the subject – regardless of whether or not the depiction is of an actual child.

The statute listed for the second count was recently modified to define a visual representation as “indistinguishable from an actual child.”

The law, HB 4623, prohibits the use of artificial intelligence to create child porn that involves either real children or obscene imagery.

The “obscene depiction” is defined in state statute as “a visual representation of any kind, including an image, video or computer-generated image or video, whether made, produced, or altered by electronic, mechanical or other means” that “the average person” would find it to be “patently offensive” and lacking “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

The Waterloo Police Department investigated this case. The WPD stated in a news release that it received information in April regarding a subject possession “AI pornography.”

“The individual reporting this information provided digital evidence which allowed the Waterloo Police Department to execute a search warrant at the suspect’s residence,” the WPD release states. “As a result of this search warrant, numerous items of evidentiary value were seized. Pursuant to additional search warrants executed on electronic devices seized from the suspect’s residence, an excessive amount of digital evidence was located.”

Hermann, who has a previous conviction for battery, was denied pre-trial release and remains in the Monroe County Jail. He pled not guilty to the charges.

On Saturday, Hermann was arrested for domestic battery related to an alleged incident with his girlfriend.