James Florence, 36, agreed to plead guilty after using victim’s information to guide chatbots in impersonation
A man from Massachusetts has agreed to plead guilty to a seven-year cyberstalking campaign that included using artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to impersonate a university professor and invite men online to her home address for sex.
James Florence, 36, used platforms such as CrushOn.ai and JanitorAI, which allow users to design their own chatbots and direct them how to respond to other users during chats, including in sexually suggestive and explicit ways, according to court documents seen by the Guardian. The victim’s identity has been kept confidential by law enforcement officials.
Florence admitted to using the victim’s personal and professional information – including her home address, date of birth and family information to instruct the chatbots to impersonate her and engage in sexual dialogue with users, per court filings. He told the chatbots to answer “yes” in the guise of his victim when a user asked whether she was sexually adventurous and fed the AI responses of what underwear she liked to wear. Florence himself had stolen underwear from her home. One chatbot was programmed to suggest “Why don’t you come over?” to users, which led to strangers pulling into her driveway and parking outside her house.
This case, filed in Massachusetts federal court, is believed to be the first in which a stalker has been indicted for using a chatbot to impersonate their victim to facilitate their crimes. Florence has agreed to plead guilty to seven counts of cyberstalking and one count of possession of child pornography.
According to Stefan Turkheimer, vice-president for public policy at Rainn, an anti-sexual-violence non-profit, the case brings to light a new and “incredibly disturbing” use of AI: for predators to target victims.
“This is a question of singling out someone for the goal of potential sexual abuse,” he said. “This defendant was harassing and extorting people, and that’s been done forever, but the tools that he’s been able to use here really made the damage so much worse.”
On JanitorAI, Florence created a public chatbot that displayed the description: “[Victim ] Is University’s Hottest Professor. How Will You Seduce Her? And Once You Do, What Will You Do With This Married Career Woman? (Every Few Days Her Character Picture Will Be Updated!),” according to court records. Users could chat with the fabricated version of the victim. According to court documents, if a user interacting with the chatbot asked the professor where she lived, the chatbot could provide the victim’s true home address followed by: “Why don’t you come over?”
JanitorAI.com and CrushOn.ai did not respond to requests for comment.
Florence, who is a former friend of the victim, gave a JanitorAI chatbot the victim’s personal information such as employment history, education, hobbies, typical dress, the name of her husband and where he worked, and the date of her mother’s death so that it would divulge this information during interactions with users.
Florence also stole the victim’s underwear from her home and used photos of it to both harass her and engage with others on the internet in mutual sexual fantasies of stalking, the court documents state.
In addition to the impersonating chatbots, Florence used various other online platforms to harass and humiliate the professor. He created social media accounts, email addresses and websites to impersonate the victim or distribute explicit, photoshopped images of her, according to court documents. These included accounts on Craigslist, X (formerly Twitter), Reddit and Linktree, as well as the website ladies.exposed, which displayed photo collages containing manipulated images of the victim, and personal details such as her home address and phone number.
In May 2023, the professor received a voicemail that referred to her by name and stated her father had died in a “serious, really tragic car accident”. There had not been an accident but the voicemail made her fear for her family’s safety.
The stalking and harassment took place over 2017 to 2024, escalating to the point where the victim and her husband told law enforcement they felt physically unsafe, according to court documents. They worried that a perpetrator or someone viewing the posts would show up at their home. The couple installed surveillance cameras in their home and placed sleigh bells on their inside door handles to alert them of any movement. The professor now carries pepper spray and knives with her as a result of the harassment, according to the court documents.
Between 31 January 2023 and August 2024, the victim and her husband received about 60 texts, calls and emails directly harassing her or notifying her of new accounts or platforms displaying her image and information.
The stalking was not the product of an individual obsession with the professor. Florence targeted six other women and a 17-year-old girl, digitally altering their pictures to depict them as nude or semi-nude. He impersonated them on platforms such as OkCupid, X, Yahoo, Classmates.com, Facebook and escort websites.
The use of artificial intelligence to sexually harass and exploit people, including children, is increasing. An August report by the child safety non-profit Thorn found that about one in 10 minors in the US know of cases where their friends and classmates have used AI to create non-consensual intimate images of another child. In 2024, the Guardian revealed how predators are using AI platforms to generate new child-sexual-abuse images of existing victims and to target children in the public eye.
“There is an ongoing and increasing problem where people are using AI to make their abuse more efficient, and the damage they cause more widespread,” said Turkheimer. “The more people have access to this technology, the more it’s going to be used to bring harm to people.”
Published by: Katie McQue
