Ex-School Athletic Director Gets 4 Months in Jail for Racist Deepfake Recording

A former athletic director at a Baltimore area high school who was accused of using artificial intelligence to create a racist and antisemitic audio clip impersonating the school’s principal was sentenced on Monday to four months in jail as part of a plea deal, according to prosecutors.

The former director, Dazhon Darien, 32, pleaded guilty to disturbing school operations, a misdemeanor charge, according to the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office. Mr. Darien had previously faced additional charges, including theft, stalking and retaliating against a witness.

According to The Associated Press, Mr. Darien entered an Alford plea to the disturbing school operations charge, which allows defendants to maintain their innocence while pleading guilty.

Mr. Darien, the former athletic director of Pikesville High School, fabricated an audio clip that included a rant about “ungrateful Black kids who can’t test their way out of a paper bag” and disparaging comments about Jewish students, according to a statement of facts in the case used to support the guilty plea. According to police records, the audio was an attempt to smear the school’s principal, Eric Eiswert.

According to the statement of facts, Mr. Eiswert said that there had been “conversations” with Mr. Darien about his contract not being renewed because of “his poor performance at the school, his inability to follow clearly laid out procedures and his unwillingness to follow the chain of command.” Problems with Mr. Darien began in late 2023, leading up to the audio’s release, according to the statement.

A lawyer listed for Mr. Darien did not respond to calls and messages on Tuesday. The Baltimore County Public Schools district declined to comment on the case. Efforts to reach Mr. Eiswert on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

After his sentencing, Mr. Darien was returned to federal custody as he is facing charges that he sexually exploited children and received child pornography.

The fabricated recording, which was posted on Instagram in January 2024, quickly spread, roiling Baltimore County Public Schools, which serves more than 100,000 students. While the district investigated, Mr. Eiswert, who denied making the comments, had multiple threats to his safety, the police said. He was also placed on administrative leave, the school district said.

According to police documents, Mr. Darien developed a grievance against Mr. Eiswert in December after the principal began investigating him. Mr. Darien had authorized a district payment of $1,916 to his roommate, the police said, “under the pretense” that the roommate was working as an assistant coach for the Pikesville girls’ soccer team.

Soon after, the police said, Mr. Darien used the school district’s internet services to search for artificial intelligence tools, including from OpenAI, the developer of the ChatGPT chatbot, and Microsoft’s Bing Chat.

(The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, in December 2023, for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems.)

A public defender representing Mr. Darien declined to comment on the case.

It has never been easier to make realistic fabricated videos, often called deepfakes. Where it once took elaborate software to put one person’s face onto another’s, many of those tools are now common and can be found on smartphone apps. This has put some A.I. researchers on edge about the dangers the technology poses.