A South Korean court on Wednesday sentenced the American influencer known as Johnny Somali to six months in prison with hard labor and 20 days detention, ending a years-long legal battle centered on the 25-year-old creator’s “nuisance streaming” that played out globally, including in Japan.

Somali, whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael, was handcuffed soon after the verdict was delivered, according to legal experts who attended the sentencing in Seoul. He was found guilty on all eight charges leveled at him, including the creation of sexually explicit deepfake content to which Somali pleaded not guilty.

Somali’s saga began in Japan in 2023, when he came to the country and gained notoriety for online content focused on disturbing the public. Notable incidents included playing racist songs on trains and making vulgar comments to people on the streets.

In August 2023, Osaka police arrested Somali for trespassing on a construction site. Those charges were eventually dropped, though he was fined ¥200,000 for obstructing business after playing loud music inside a gyūdon (beef bowl) restaurant.

The influencer traveled to other countries including Thailand and Israel afterward, eventually ending up in South Korea in September 2024. Somali continued his usual activities of sharing offensive content in public, such as playing North Korean music on public transportation, among other attention-grabbing antics. 

He received particular scrutiny after mimicking vulgar acts on a statue honoring the victims of Japanese wartime sexual slavery. Later, in a rare act of contrition, he filmed an apology and said he did not understand the significance of the statue.

Due to his repeated infractions of public decency in the months prior, a Seoul district judge issued a departure ban on Somali in November 2024, preventing him from leaving South Korea. 

Over the course of 2025, Somali was embroiled in a legal battle that compelled him to attend hearings starting in March and culminated in Wednesday’s ruling.

In recent years, Somali has emerged as one of the first major nuisance streamers, referring to online personalities who livestream their travels and often embrace transgressive behavior as a way of creating viral content. He was among the primary instigators of a backlash in Japan against online creators, raising public concern about bad behavior by international travelers during a time of overtourism.