Woman shares AI-generated photo of her being arrested after Utah County Sheriff’s Department allegedly calls her about a warrant

A woman says someone posing as a Utah County Sheriff’s Department officer called and threatened to arrest her in a scam attempt. In response, she sent the caller an AI-generated image of herself being arrested. Laura (laura.bro6) said in a TikTok video that she received the call a few weeks ago, and the caller claimed she had missed jury duty for a “high-profile” case the previous day, making her eligible for an arrest warrant.

Laura realized the man was lying when she recalled that she had done jury duty the previous year and wasn’t expected to do it again for at least the next 3-4 years. Her account suggested that she confronted the man a couple of times during their conversation, but he resisted and threatened to detain her. When she no longer entertained him, Laura said he sent her a copy of an arrest warrant via message. She shared an image of the same that was “apparently” sent by the United States District Court.

In an attempt to perhaps mess with the person, Laura said she shared the image with him. The screen displayed the images she sent him, which contained two side-by-side pictures. One showed her being arrested while posing for the camera, and the other was a mugshot of her holding a board containing her details inside the police station.

A couple of missteps she could have avoided

While recounting the events, Laura admitted on at least two occasions that she should have handled things differently. She said she confirmed her name and address when the officer asked, but later realized she shouldn’t have. “And then he reads me my address, and don’t ever do this. But I did confirm my address over the phone. I shouldn’t have, but I was like, yeah, that’s my address,” she said. She also acknowledged that she shouldn’t have shared the photo with him.

That said, she approached the case with considerable caution. Even before the incident, she was already in a stronger position. She mentioned that her phone has a feature that requires unknown callers to explain why they’re calling. This seems to have given her time to prepare for the interaction, rather than being blindsided by such serious information, and later appears to have helped her approach the situation objectively. 

The feature Laura mentions is generally called Call Screening. According to Consumer Cellular, it’s available on iPhone (iOS), Google Pixel (Google Call Screen), Samsung Galaxy, and Motorola devices with Google Assistant-based screening. When you turn on call screening and receive a call from an unknown number, the caller is asked why they’re calling. You can see a live transcript of their response and decide whether to accept or reject the call.

Laura’s presence of mind saved her a lot of trouble.

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