Prosecutors with the Montana Attorney General’s Office on Thursday charged a 31-year-old Carter County man with three felony counts of sexual abuse of children for possession of explicit images and videos depicting a child under 12, including at least one image digitally altered using artificial intelligence.
Shy Herbert McCutchan was arrested in Alzada by the Carter County Sheriff’s Office and the Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI). Authorities began investigating after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received multiple tips indicating that child sexual abuse material (CSAM) had been uploaded to a cloud backup from McCutchan’s devices.
Investigators determined that McCutchan captured images of a child from a parent’s public social media account and used AI to create manipulated explicit content, producing AI-generated CSAM. Officials noted that the use of AI to digitally alter images of children has become increasingly common among sex predators.
To address this growing threat, House Bill 82, supported by Attorney General Austin Knudsen and signed into law in 2025, allows prosecutors to pursue cases against individuals who use AI to digitally manipulate child images.
McCutchan is being held on $250,000 bond, as ordered by District Court Judge Rennie Wittman. His arraignment is scheduled for September 9, and he faces up to 100 years in prison on each of the three counts.
The case was investigated by the DCI’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit and the Carter County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant Attorneys General Daniel Guzynski and Stephanie Robles are prosecuting.