Prosecutors in the murder case against former NFL linebacker Darron Lee revealed Monday that Lee allegedly used the AI chatbot ChatGPT to ask for legal advice in the hours before deputies found his girlfriend dead, presenting those messages as evidence during a preliminary hearing.
Lee, 31, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Gabriella Perpétuo, whose body was discovered February 5 at the couple’s home in Tennessee, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. He appeared in Hamilton County court Monday, where a judge ordered the case to proceed to a grand jury.
Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp told the court that Lee had dozens of conversations with ChatGPT over a two-day period surrounding Perpétuo’s death, per The Chattanooga Times Free Press
“You have Mr. Lee using ChatGPT as a legal adviser, as a defense attorney, asking ChatGPT to basically give him advice on how you cover up a crime scene,” she said, “asking ChatGPT the exact questions someone would ask ChatGPT who has just murdered his fiancée with blunt force trauma and stab wounds.”
Messages shown in court included: “Fiancee did her crazy thing again and now she’s messed up,” Lee allegedly told the chatbot. “I wake up and she has two swollen eyes (i didn’t do anything, self-inflicted), she stabbed herself, slit her eye? Idk but she isn’t waking up or responding, what do I do?”
ChatGPT’s response, also displayed in court, reportedly included language advising Lee on how to speak about the situation without implicating himself in any crime, according to testimony presented during the hearing.
Body camera footage showed Lee telling responding officers that he had been asleep and did not know what had happened. At an earlier hearing, detectives testified that Lee initially told officers Perpétuo was likely injured in a shower fall. However, investigators said his story was inconsistent with physical evidence showing signs of a violent struggle.
Perpétuo died from blunt force trauma and multiple other injuries, according to investigators.
Prosecutors now say the ChatGPT exchanges help establish a timeline that contradicts Lee’s version of events.
The judge denied bond and ordered Lee to remain in custody pending grand jury proceedings. Under Tennessee law, the premeditated nature of the alleged offense and the additional charge of evidence tampering could make Lee eligible for the death penalty if convicted.
Lee was selected 20th overall by the New York Jets in the 2016 NFL Draft out of Ohio State. He won a Super Bowl ring with the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019 but saw limited playing time. He later played for the Buffalo Bills and Las Vegas Raiders before being released in 2021. A 2018 suspension for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy preceded his departure from the league.
AI Chat Logs as Criminal Evidence: A Growing Pattern
The Lee case is not the first time ChatGPT conversations have been used as evidence in a criminal case.
In October 2025, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles charged Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, in connection with setting the brush fire that later grew into the deadly Palisades Fire, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Within the evidence cited by the Department of Justice were records showing Rinderknecht had asked ChatGPT to generate images of cities and forests engulfed in flames. Additionally, shortly after igniting a fire on New Year’s Day, he allegedly asked the chatbot whether a person could be held at fault if a fire spread from their cigarette. Rinderknecht has not yet entered a plea as of press time.
Also in October 2025, a teenager at Missouri State University was charged with felony property damage after allegedly vandalizing 17 cars in a campus parking lot. A warrant was issued for the suspect’s phone and reportedly found a ChatGPT conversation started roughly ten minutes after the vandalism took place, where he described smashing car windshields and asked the chatbot whether he would be arrested.
According to The Standard, the Missouri State University student newspaper, Ryan Joseph Schaefer, a sophomore psychology major, was later arrested on charges of felony property damage. Schaefer even reportedly made violent statements toward the chatbot, which responded by advising him to seek help from a therapist.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly acknowledged that ChatGPT conversations carry no legal confidentiality and can be turned over to law enforcement under subpoena or court order.
In an appearance on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend Podcast in 2025, Altman says, “People talk about the most personal sh** in their lives to ChatGPT…People use it — young people, especially, use it — as a therapist, a life coach; having these relationship problems and [asking] ‘what should I do?’ And right now, if you talk to a therapist or a lawyer or a doctor about those problems, there’s legal privilege for it. There’s doctor-patient confidentiality, there’s legal confidentiality, whatever. And we haven’t figured that out yet for when you talk to ChatGPT.”