A Bonita Springs woman is facing a felony charge after deputies accused her of making violent threats against the Lee County Sheriff’s Office during conversations with Anthropic’s Claude AI.
The unusual path from private-looking AI conversation to arrest began with messages attributed to 30-year-old Carli Michelle Heller. An arrest report obtained by Gulf Coast News Now says a user identified as Heller wrote on Sept. 26 that she was going to “shoot up” the sheriff’s office.
Another message followed early the next morning, the report says. This time, the user claimed to have gotten a new gun and described the message as a “last chance.”
What happened inside the AI platform proved just as important as what was typed into it. The report says Claude’s safety systems flagged the conversation, escalated it for human review, and Anthropic then notified law enforcement.
Human Review
Anthropic publicly describes a system that combines automated detection with people reviewing potential misuse. The company says its safeguards can use classifiers to detect specific categories of harmful activity in real time, with human review incorporated into its enforcement process.
That makes the sequence described in Heller’s arrest report consistent with Anthropic’s published safeguards system, although the company has not publicly detailed how Heller’s specific conversation was processed.
Anthropic also addresses situations involving law enforcement in its transparency materials. The company says it may disclose user information in limited emergency circumstances when it believes doing so is necessary to prevent danger of death or serious physical injury.
Deputies went to Heller’s Dean Street home in Bonita Springs after receiving the information and detained her without incident, according to the report.
Written Threat
Heller was arrested on an allegation involving a written or electronic threat.
Under Florida Statute 836.10, a person can commit an offense by sending, posting, or transmitting a written or electronic record containing a threat to kill or cause bodily harm, or to conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism. The offense is classified as a second-degree felony.
The statute specifically requires the communication to be made in a manner in which another person may view it. Heller’s arrest remains an allegation, and prosecutors would still have to establish the elements of the charged offense in court.
Anthropic’s policies make clear that a conversation with Claude should not necessarily be treated like a private notebook. Its systems monitor for certain forms of harmful use, and some flagged activity can move beyond an automated response to human review.
All parties are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.