BLACK School Athletic Director Allegedly Tried to Frame WHITE Principal for Crime Using AI-Generated Voice

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School Athletic Director Allegedly Tried to Frame Principal for Crime Using AI-Generated Voice

While under investigation for allegedly mishandling school money, a former athletic director allegedly used AI to create audio of the principal making racist remarks

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School Athletic Director Allegedly Tried to Frame Principal for Crime Using AI-Generated Voice​

Sean Neumann
Thu, April 25, 2024 at 1:28 PM PDT·3 min read
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While under investigation for allegedly mishandling school money, a former athletic director allegedly used AI to create audio of the principal making racist remarks

Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service/Getty
Pikesville High School in Baltimore County, Maryland

Baltimore County Police announced Thursday that authorities arrested a former high school athletic director who is accused of using an AI-generated voice to frame the school’s principal of saying racist comments.

At a press conference Thursday, Baltimore County Chief of Police Robert McCollough said Dazhon Darien, 31, was arrested earlier this morning while trying to board a flight with a firearm.

After Darien was stopped by officers with the Maryland Transportation Authority, authorities soon found he had an active warrant out for his arrest and took him into custody.

The former school athletic director has been charged with disrupting school activities, theft, retaliating against a witness, and stalking, McCollough said. The former Pikesville High School athletic director is being held on a $5,000 bond.

Authorities allege that Darien had programmed Principal Eric Eiswert’s voice to say anti-semitic remarks in an audio clip he later spread on social media, The Baltimore Banner first reported Thursday morning.

“The audio clip ... had profound repercussions,” the police’s charging documents read, according to the outlet. “It not only led to Eiswert’s temporary removal from the school but also triggered a wave of hate-filled messages on social media and numerous calls to the school. The recording also caused significant disruptions for the PHS staff and students.”

McCollough said Thursday that investigators found “conclusive evidence that the recording was not authentic” and that two forensic analysts found the recording was generated through the use of artificial intelligence.


Darien allegedly used school computers to search for the AI audio technology, McCollough added.

Investigators also said they tied Darien to an email connected to the social media account that initially shared the AI-generated audio clip, which led to Eiswert stepping away from his duties as principal amid fierce backlash at the school and within the local community.

McCollough told reporters that police believe Darien leaked the fake audio "to retaliate" against Eiswert, who placed Darien under investigation earlier this year for allegedly mishandling school finances.

According to The Banner, Darien was under investigation after he issued a nearly $2,000 payment to the school’s junior varsity basketball coach, who is also his roommate.

Darien allegedly bypassed typical payroll procedures to approve the payment, which was made out to the coach for also serving as an assistant girl’s soccer coach. However, the individual was reportedly not an assistant coach for the team.

WBAL-TV reported that the audio clip led to stiff backlash against Eiswert at the time and forced him to step away from his duties as principal while the clip was being investigated.

The principal required police presence at his home and had received threatening messages after the fake audio spread online, according to The Banner.

“The school leadership expressed that staff did not feel safe, which required an increase in police presence at the school to address safety concerns and fears,” police also said, according to the outlet.

Documents reviewed by PEOPLE show Darien and Shaena Ravenell, an English teacher who allegedly helped spread the falsified audio among students at the school, submitted their resignations to the school board earlier this month.

 

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Dazhon Darien, 31

MSN

Baltimore HS athletic director used AI to make fake clip of principal spouting racist rhetoric: police​

Story by Katherine Donlevy
• 1d
A Baltimore suburb high school athletic director allegedly used artificial intelligence to impersonate his principal spouting racist and antisemitic hate as part of a demented revenge scheme.


Dazhon Darien, 31, was arrested Thursday while trying to hop on a plane to Houston.


“From the very beginning, we have expressed our concern about the disturbing audio that shook our communities here in Baltimore County. That’s because those words go against everything we stand for,” County Executive Johnny Olszewski said at a press conference.


“Hate has no place and no home in Baltimore County. Nor should it have any place across our state or here in our country,”

Athletic director Dazhon Darien allegedly used artificial intelligence to make it seem like the school’s principal was spouting racist hate. Facebook/Dazhon Leslie Darien © Provided by New York Post

The bizarre saga started in January, when disturbing audio of what sounded like Pikesville High School Principal Eric Eiswert slamming students of color during a phony conversation with one of the school’s assistant principals made rounds on social media.


In the clip, the mimicked voice of Eiswert said African American students were unable to “test their way out of a paper bag” and that there were two Jewish teachers who “should never have been hired at the school,” according to charging documents obtained by 2 WMAR.


As punishment, Eiswert was temporarily removed from the school — but he declared his innocence and told police he believed the audio clip was falsified using AI.


He even pointed to Darien as the culprit, telling officials he was “technologically savvy.”

Principal Eric Eiswert denied that he made the comments, and even pointed the finger at Darien as the culprit. X/@ericeiswert1 © Provided by New York Post

Even more damning, there were conversations about not renewing Darien’s contract for the following semester following multiple work-related issues since beginning his role as athletic director in July 2023, including firing a long-standing coach at the school without approval and paying his roommate as an assistant coach despite not working for any teams.



“Through their investigation, detectives alleged Mr. Darien who was the athletic director at the high school made the recording to retaliate against the principal who had launched an investigation into the potential mishandling of school funds,” Chief of Police Robert McCollough said.

The FBI and an expert from the University of California, Berkley ultimately tied Darien to the simulated audio to an email account under the alias TJ Foust, which he allegedly used to send the phony recording to his own work email and other teachers at the school.

During an interview with detectives, Darien allegedly admitted to “having issues” with Eiswert throughout his short tenure at the school.


He was arrested Friday at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport when authorities were alerted to an improperly stored firearm in his bag, officials said.


When they performed a background check, they discovered the warrant out for his arrest that Baltimore County officials had filed the night before.

Darien was arrested Thursday while trying to board a flight to Texas. Facebook/Dazhon Leslie Darien © Provided by New York Post

Whether he was trying to flee to Texas or making an unrelated trip is still unknown, according to investigators.


He was charged with several charges including theft, stalking, disruption of school operations and retaliation against a witness. He was released on a $5,000 unsecured bond.


Baltimore County Schools have since put forth a recommendation for his employment termination, and is expected to bring back Principal Eiswert now that his name has been cleared.

 

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Darien and Shaena Ravenell, an English teacher who allegedly helped spread the falsified audio among students at the school, submitted their resignations to the school board earlier this month.

School athletic director arrested for framing principal using AI voice synthesis

Police uncover plot to defame principal with AI-generated racist and antisemitic comments.

arstechnica.com

On Thursday, Baltimore County Police arrested Pikesville High School's former athletic director, Dazhon Darien, and charged him with using AI to impersonate Principal Eric Eiswert, according to a report by The Baltimore Banner. Police say Darien used AI voice synthesis software to simulate Eiswert's voice, leading the public to believe the principal made racist and antisemitic comments.

The audio clip, posted on a popular Instagram account, contained offensive remarks about "ungrateful Black kids" and their academic performance, as well as a threat to "join the other side" if the speaker received one more complaint from "one more Jew in this community." The recording also mentioned names of staff members, including Darien's nickname "DJ," suggesting they should not have been hired or should be removed "one way or another."

The comments led to significant uproar from students, faculty, and the wider community, many of whom initially believed the principal had actually made the comments. A Pikesville High School teacher named Shaena Ravenell reportedly played a large role in disseminating the audio. While she has not been charged, police indicated that she forwarded the controversial email to a student known for their ability to quickly spread information through social media. This student then escalated the audio's reach, which included sharing it with the media and the NAACP.


Baltimore County Police say that Darien had accessed school networks to search for and utilize AI tools capable of voice imitation. Police also linked Darien to an email account used to distribute the fake recordings.


Voice-cloning technology, which we have covered in the past, can generate realistic speech after being trained on millions of human voices, then tuned to match a specific voice in a provided sample. In March, Baltimore Banner reporters spoke with Siwei Lyu, the director of a media forensics lab at the University at Buffalo. Lyu told the newspaper that he believed the falsified clip of Eiswert speaking was created using a voice synthesis service such as ElevenLabs. ElevenLabs allows users to upload voice samples of people for cloning using text-to-speech synthesis, although its terms of service prohibit cloning a voice without the person's permission.


The incident led to Eiswert being absent from the school since the investigation began, and he has denied making the comments, stating that they do not align with his views. "I did not make this statement, and these thoughts are not what I believe in as both an educator and a person," Eiswert said in a written statement.

Further Reading​

OpenAI holds back wide release of voice-cloning tech due to misuse concerns

When the audio clip emerged in January, Superintendent Myriam Rogers called the comments "disturbing" and "highly offensive and inappropriate." The Baltimore Banner notes that Billy Burke, head of the union representing Eiswert, was the only official to publicly suggest the audio was AI-generated. He expressed disappointment in the public's assumption of Eiswert's guilt and revealed that the principal and his family had been harassed and threatened, requiring police presence at their home.


This isn't the first time that AI voice-cloning software has caused trouble. We've previously covered phone scams where someone imitates a loved one's voice (in an attempt to trick people into giving them money) and election campaign robocalls that use cloned voices of famous politicians like Joe Biden. In March, OpenAI revealed the existence of its own voice-cloning technology, but the company said it was holding it back for now due to misuse concerns.

 

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