Florida Woman Arrested After AI ‘Diary’ Chat Allegedly Threatened Sheriff’s Office

A Lee County, Florida, woman is facing a felony charge after a conversation with Anthropic’s Claude AI chatbot was reported to police.

Carli Michelle Heller, from Bonita Springs, was arrested after Anthropic’s human review team flagged one of her chats and passed it to law enforcement.

According to the arrest report, a Sept. 26 message from a user identified as “Carli” said she would “shoot up” the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators say a message the next day mentioned a new gun.

She told investigators she used Claude as a diary to record her personal thoughts.

Heller was detained at her home without incident.

Court records list a Sept. 30 felony charge under Florida Statute 836.10, which covers written or electronic threats of a mass shooting or act of terrorism.

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said that what people share with an AI chatbot is “never truly anonymous.”

The arrest report says Anthropic monitors chats for key phrases and content that could be deemed threatening. Depending on severity, a chat can go to human review. In this case, the review team decided to report its findings to police.