Amid public uproar over the news that a Lafourche Parish girl was expelled for hitting a boy who allegedly shared AI-generated nude photos of her, local officials shared new details on Thursday about the case — including that seven additional girls were depicted in the explicit images.
At least eight middle school girls and two adults were the subjects of the fake nude photos, which reportedly circulated on social media in August, said Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre and Lafourche Parish Schools Superintendent Jarod Martin in a joint statement Thursday. They said their goal was “to correct rumors and misinformation.”
The sheriff’s office arrested one male student on 10 counts of unlawfully spreading explicit images of another person created by artificial intelligence, and an additional arrest against a second person is possible, the statement said.
Webre also said Thursday that social media posts about the case had “fueled hostility and provoked violent rhetoric” toward Lafourche Parish school officials and administrators at Sixth Ward Middle School in Thibodaux, where both the female victims and one accused perpetrator were students. Webre said his office is investigating threatening messages directed at the district officials and school employees.
“We absolutely support everyone’s right to free speech and voicing their opinion on any given topic,” the sheriff said in a statement, “but threats of violence and harassment are crimes that are not protected under the First Amendment.”
The newly released information — including the school resource officer’s initial incident report — makes clear that adults at Sixth Ward Middle School took action after learning about the AI-generated nude photos, or deepfakes.
However, the information also raises some questions about how school leaders handled the situation and whether they could have done more to prevent the altercation that led to the girl’s expulsion.
Disturbing fake photos reported
On the morning of Aug. 26, several girls told a school counselor that fake naked images of them were spreading on social media, according to the incident report. Under Louisiana law, it’s illegal to create or distribute explicit deepfakes of minors.
The school resource officer, who is a deputy in the sheriff’s office, began interviewing students. Students’ parents were contacted “during the course of the day,” the statement by Sheriff Webre and Superintendent Martin says.
Lawyers for the girl who was expelled have alleged that the school did not allow her to call her father. A spokesperson for the Lafourche Parish School District said Friday that school employees contacted the girl’s father and mother that day.
During the investigation, the school resource officer was told that male students were sharing the images on TikTok and Snapchat, according to the report. “Despite everyone’s best efforts” that day, the joint statement said, investigators could not immediately track down the images or “evidence of the existence of the images.” Webre and Martin added that there was “no indication of the potential for physical violence” and “no reason to consider delaying normal dismissal.”
But the incident report shows that the girls named three boys who they believed had created the fake nudes. One was a current Sixth Ward Middle School student, while the others were a Thibodaux High School student and a middle schooler in another parish.
Despite having that information before dismissal, the school apparently allowed at least one of the girls who reported the deepfakes to board a school bus that afternoon with a boy accused of sharing the images. On the bus, the girl and two male students struck the boy multiple times, officials said.
Gregory Miller, one of the attorneys for the family of the girl, said she was expelled from school for over two months after the bus altercation. He said the school could have asked the boy’s family to pick him up that afternoon, rather than allow him to ride the bus.
“It’s just outright incompetence,” he said.
Altercation probe uncovers deepfakes
Tanya Bolton, the school district spokesperson, acknowledged that “with the limited information available at the time,” the school did not attempt on Aug. 26 to separate the girls who reported the explicit images from the boy who they said was sharing them.
A spokesperson for the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office, Capt. Brennan Matherne, said school administrators made the decision to allow those students to ride the bus together.
“They were aware of the allegations and had their own investigation, parallel to ours,” he said in an email Friday.
After a student-recorded video of the bus attack surfaced on Facebook that afternoon, commenters expressed “outrage” and demanded “that the students involved in the fight be held accountable,” Webre and Martin said.
They said the video prompted law enforcement to obtain statements about the altercation and warrants to search phones and social media accounts for evidence. The investigation into the bus incident led authorities to discover the AI-generated nude photos, they added.
“The focus of the criminal investigation then pivoted to the creation and dissemination of the pornographic images,” the statement said.
At a Nov. 5 meeting of the Lafourche Parish School Board, attorneys for the girl argued that expelling her for hitting a boy who was allegedly sharing graphic images of her was unduly harsh. The board voted to uphold her expulsion, but allowed her to return to school.
Monday was her first day back since the Aug. 26 incident, her lawyers said.
“She’s trying to readjust,” Miller said, “but it’s been very difficult.”