A 24-year-old Connecticut man was chatting online with someone he never met. He stayed with the conversation even when the stranger said she was 14. Instead of leaving the chat, he allegedly asked for pictures.

"Oh you're pretty," he said when he got the first one — and it wasn't long before he expressing his excitement in explicit detail, according to police.

The "girl" was a Bloomfield police officer who used AI technology to make herself look younger. The Norwich man, Isaiah Tucker, was arrested; he remains in custody on $95,000 bail on charges of enticing a minor and criminal attempt to commit risk of injury to a child, state records show.

Police have been posing as minors online and in text messages for decades, mimicking teen text-speak to lure child predators. But sending aged-regressed, or age-reduced, pictures of themselves to suspects is relatively new.

Mike Lawlor, a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven who was a lawmaker and then a crime expert for former Gov. Dannel Malloy's administration, said he wasn't aware police were using AI to make themselves appear younger for investigations.

In a March article, a writer for Forbes magazine said he, too, hadn't seen any specific cases where cops have transformed themselves into children to lure pedophiles.

Felipe Rodriguez, a longtime professor of criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and retired NYPD detective, said he's heard of it. And while the technology is not used every day, "it's going to become more and more common," he said.

AI age regression is 'used judiciously,' police say

This use of AI is not new everywhere, though. In Contra Costa County in California, a cop used it to present a younger face to an elementary school teacher, making himself appear as a 13-year-old boy, The Mercury News wrote in January 2022.

And in Texas, a City of Snyder police officer who used age regression technology to make herself appear to be a 13-year-old girl played a key role in the arrest of a 38-year-old Abilene man who showed up to meet the "girl" in a park for sex, bringing with him whiskey, Skittles and a towel, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Texas. The man was convicted after a trial and sentenced to 10 years in prison, court documents show.

The Connecticut State Police said they, too, have used the technology — although not often — as have their local and federal partners.

And a working group with members from nine Hartford-area police departments, The Connecticut Center for Digital Investigations, has used the technology, although sparingly.

"The technology is useful but is used judiciously, in certain situations," Manchester Sgt. Ryan Bycholski said.

In the capital city itself, police have been has been using AI to make investigators look younger for about two years, said Hartford Police Lt. Aaron Boisvert.

The technology allows investigators to appear credible as they deceive potential abusers without using real children's pictures, which Boisvert said would be unethical.

As Rodriguez said, "We really don't want to use the picture of a kid."

Experts weigh whether AI-powered stings could be considered entrapment

One reason to use the technology carefully is to avoid claims of trapping suspects.

"A good defense attorney can claim entrapment," Rodriguez said. "During a trial, they can say, 'Well, listen, this picture isn't even real.' "

But Lawlor — who also was a prosecutor — said it's "well-established law" that police may lie or mislead suspects in the interrogation room, and being deceptive about their age online also is legal.

Luring unsuspecting people online is not entrapment unless police are talking to someone who would not otherwise have engaged in illegal behavior into breaking the law, he said.

In other words, Lawlor said, it's not entrapment if the person is predisposed to that behavior.

He compared this use of artificial intelligence to a drug bust, during which an undercover officer may stand on a street corner in a drug-infested neighborhood while other cops watch and listen from hiding spots. If a car pulls up and its driver says, "How much," tells the fake dealer what kind of drug he wants and gives him money, after which officers converge and arrest him, that is a legitimate takedown, Lawlor said.

AI-altered photos of detective used in Hartford sting that led to 3 arrests

In the Hartford case, police used AI a little differently than the Bloomfield officer. They didn't use it in one-on-one conversations, but instead used three "age-reduced" images of a detective in an ad they placed on a website suspected of promoting commercial sex workers, including with minors. Along with the pictures was "a list of sexual acts available for purchase," police said in a report.

Three men answered the ad and texted back and forth with the detective, who made it clear she was 15. They arranged to meet the "girl" at a hotel in the South Meadows of Hartford near Brainard Airport. When they showed up, Billa Hasan, 56, of Wolcott; Abdul Sheikh, 85, of Rocky Hill; and Lennox Williams, 34, of Amherst, Mass., were charged with criminal attempt to commit second-degree sexual assault, criminal attempt to commit sexual abuse of a minor and criminal attempt to commit sexual contact with a victim under 16 years of age.

The cop wasn't the only one lying about her age, though.

Like the detective, the 85-year-old, Sheikh, also lied about his age, police said, telling the "girl" he was in his 30s.

Upon hearing she was only 15, he had no concerns — except that he might not be able to keep up, the police report said.

"I cannot do that for a long time," he texted, according to the police report. "When men go to 30 they slow down."

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