{"id":129594,"date":"2025-09-08T20:43:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T20:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/129594\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T20:43:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T20:43:08","slug":"ont-councillor-says-death-threats-to-mayoral-hopeful-was-ai-manipulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/129594\/","title":{"rendered":"Ont. councillor says death threats to mayoral hopeful was AI manipulation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Clarington, Ont. councillor accused of threatening to \u201ckill\u201d a potential mayoral candidate<\/a> in voicemail says that the message was partially generated by AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to state clearly and unequivocally: I did not create this message,\u201d Corinna Traill said in a news release. \u201cI have been advised that artificial intelligence technology was involved. Portions of the voicemail were my voice, but other parts were artificially generated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident is currently under investigation by Peterborough Police which has yet to respond to Traill\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n

The councillor says she will \u201ccontinue to fully cooperate with authorities so that the facts can be established.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important that residents have confidence in the outcome, and I share in the community\u2019s desire for clarity and truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case stems from a complaint filed by Tom Dingwall, who is considering running for mayor in Clarington\u2019s municipal election next year. Dingwall currently works for the Law Society of Ontario.<\/p>\n

Last week, Dingwall played the voicemail to CTV News to verify its contents, but did not provide an audio recording, because the matter is currently under investigation. <\/p>\n

The voicemail was linked to a number in his cell phone under the name Corinna Traill.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the 39 second message, heard by CTV News, the voice identifies herself as \u201cCorinna Traill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c(She) told me that I need to stay out of next year\u2019s election and that if I don\u2019t, she will come to my house and kill me and sexually assault my wife,\u201d said Dingwall, a former police officer, in an interview with on Friday.<\/p>\n

In the expletive-laced message, the woman\u2019s voice threatens Dingwall and his wife and urges him to support a rival candidate, Joe Neal. <\/p>\n

On Monday, Dingwall told CTV News that Peterborough Police have yet to download the digital contents of the message from his phone but expect to do so shortly. <\/p>\n

According to Traill\u2019s personal website<\/a>, she was first elected as a councillor for Clarington in 2010. Prior to that, she was a lawyer practicing human rights, employment and family law. As councillor, she has advocated for affordable housing for seniors and the LBGTQ community.<\/p>\n

After CTV News left a message for the number associated with Traill on Dingwall\u2019s phone, an associate of the councillor forwarded a statement over email. <\/p>\n

In the email sent three days ago, Traill calls it an \u201cunfortunate circumstance,\u201d and says it would be \u201cinappropriate to talk about it at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am doing what I can to work through it and I am looking forward to this being resolved,\u201d Traill said.<\/p>\n

Dingwall, a former homicide detective with Durham Regional Police, says the message he received on the afternoon of Aug. 28, frightened his wife and was so alarming he made the decision to report it to police. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people aren\u2019t thinking rationally \u2013 they\u2019re unpredictable, and unpredictable people, unfortunately, sometimes do stupid things. And I\u2019m not prepared to take that type of risk with my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traill has served on council for the past 15 years. Clarington council will resume meetings today after the summer break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Clarington, Ont. councillor accused of threatening to \u201ckill\u201d a potential mayoral candidate in voicemail says that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-129594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}