{"id":63977,"date":"2026-03-20T18:39:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T22:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=63977"},"modified":"2026-03-20T18:39:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T22:39:44","slug":"according-to-recent-updates-from-the-polk-county-sheriffs-office-steven-gugel-a-47-year-old-man-from-mulberry-is-facing-16-additional-charges-following-a-deeper-forensic-investigation-into-his-di","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/03\/20\/according-to-recent-updates-from-the-polk-county-sheriffs-office-steven-gugel-a-47-year-old-man-from-mulberry-is-facing-16-additional-charges-following-a-deeper-forensic-investigation-into-his-di\/","title":{"rendered":"According to recent updates from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Steven Gugel, a 47-year-old man from Mulberry, is facing 16 additional charges following a deeper forensic investigation into his digital devices"},"content":{"rendered":"
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According to recent updates from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Steven Gugel<\/strong>, a 47-year-old man from Mulberry, is facing significant additional charges following a deeper forensic investigation into his digital devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case gained attention earlier this month when Gugel was initially charged with eight felonies related to the creation of child pornography using artificial intelligence.<\/sup> The investigation began after a woman discovered manipulated images on his phone that depicted three local children he knew.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Details of the Case<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Initial Charges:<\/strong> On March 11, 2026, Gugel was charged with 5 counts of creating AI-generated child pornography and 3 counts of generating altered sexual depictions without consent.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • New Charges:<\/strong> Following the forensic analysis of his seized phone and computer, detectives identified 16 additional instances<\/strong> of AI-generated materials, leading to the new set of charges you mentioned.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Method:<\/strong> Gugel reportedly admitted to using AI software to “nudeify” or superimpose the faces of children he had access to onto adult bodies in sexually explicit poses.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Current Status:<\/strong> He remains in the Polk County Jail and is being held without bond.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Sheriff Grady Judd has used this case as a public warning, stating that “putting the faces of children onto already-existing sexually explicit pornography” is a serious felony, regardless of whether the bodies in the images are real or AI-generated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    According to recent updates from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Steven Gugel, a 47-year-old man from Mulberry, is facing significant additional charges following a deeper forensic investigation into his digital… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"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.5tFXneIvjjLsqAZAmJ2EI7mP7M2vS1JpLHhKBtcl6S4MQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[14146,14144,14147,14145],"class_list":["post-63977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-a-47-year-old-man-from-mulberry","tag-according-to-recent-updates-from-the-polk-county-sheriffs-office","tag-is-facing-16-additional-charges-following-a-deeper-forensic-investigation-into-his-digital-devices","tag-steven-gugel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63979,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63977\/revisions\/63979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}