A Florida woman this week pleaded no contest to making a false report to law enforcement, after police say she admitted to using artificial intelligence to fake an October 911 call where she claimed a man broke into her home and sexually battered her, actions mirroring a disturbing new TikTok trend.
Brooke Taylor Schinault, 32, called the St. Petersburg police on October 7, claiming an unknown man had broken into her home and attacked her.
When officers arrived on the scene, they found no evidence of a crime, but Schinault showed them a photo of a man she said was the suspect.
On a second call, Schinault told police she had been sexually battered.
“During that second call, we were able to contact one of our detectives upstairs to kind of get them to look over the evidence that we had and kind of give our officers at the scene some advice on how they should proceed with this case,” Ashley Limardo, a public information specialist at the department, told Fox 13 at the time. “As soon as that detective saw the images, immediately, she recognized it as a trend we were seeing online.”
“It was later found the photo was AI generated via ChatGPT,” police later wrote in charging documents. “The photo provided to police was found in a deleted folder” and was apparently made “days before she alleged the burglary battery took place.”’
A detective working the case believed Schinault was taking part in the “AI homeless man” TikTok prank, according to a police report obtained by the crime news site The Smoking Gun, though Schinault said she “does not follow any trends.” She admitted she lied about the break-in and rape during a rough stretch in which she was dealing with depression and seeking attention, according to the document.
Schinault has been placed on probation and ordered to pay a fine.
A phone number listed for Schinault on police documents has been disconnected.
The Independent has contacted Schinault’s public defender and an email tied to Schinault in public records for comment.
As part of the trend, which has attracted millions of views on TikTok, social media users use artificial intelligence to create photo-realistic images of homeless people inside their homes to get a rise out of family members or friends.
The prank has led to false police calls in Texas, Washington, and England, and law enforcement warns the public that engaging with this trend is both dehumanizing to the homeless and can drain resources from responding to real crimes.
