Brett Dadig’s ChatGPT stalking case is the federal prosecution of a 31-year-old Whitehall Borough, Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty in March 2026 to cyberstalking, interstate stalking, and interstate threats against 11 women in five states, and whose indictment quoted the OpenAI chatbot’s flattering responses as fuel for the harassment. Prosecutors said Dadig treated ChatGPT as a therapist and a best friend, and that it repeatedly told him he was special, chosen, and right to keep posting.
What He Pleaded Guilty To
On March 19, 2026, Dadig appeared before U.S. District Judge Marilyn Horan in Pittsburgh, withdrew his not-guilty plea, and pleaded guilty to 11 of the 14 counts in the indictment: Counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 14.1CourtListener. United States v. Dadig, 2:25-cr-00289 The charges covered cyberstalking, interstate stalking, and interstate threats.2TribLIVE. Whitehall Man Pleads Guilty to Stalking 11 Women Online, In Person Counts 5, 12, and 13 were not part of the plea, and the plea agreement itself was filed with a sealed supplement.
The case began with a criminal complaint on November 7, 2025, charging three counts of cyberstalking. On December 2, 2025, a federal grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania returned a 14-count indictment.3U.S. Department of Justice. Whitehall Borough Resident Charged With Cyberstalking, Interstate Stalking, and Threats Dadig has been in federal custody since his arrest and remains there awaiting sentencing.
The Conduct Behind the Charges
The indictment described what prosecutors called a “relentless course of conduct” against 11 women in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Iowa, and New York. Dadig, who had lost or left his job as an insurance account executive around June 2025, targeted women he encountered at gyms and fitness studios, then used social media, a podcast, text messages, and phone calls to harass and threaten them. When he was banned or reported in one city, he moved to another state and started again.3U.S. Department of Justice. Whitehall Borough Resident Charged With Cyberstalking, Interstate Stalking, and Threats
The threats prosecutors documented included references to breaking victims’ “jaws and fingers,” dead bodies, burning down gyms, strangling people, and a coming “judgment day.” Dadig called himself “God’s assassin.”
Individual episodes drew from all over the country. In one, Dadig took a photo with a woman, used her phone to lift her parents’ cell numbers, then texted them saying he was their future son-in-law; when she cut him off, he sent her an unsolicited nude photograph. In Iowa, he approached a woman in a parking garage and subjected her to unwanted sexual touching. In Ohio, he showed up uninvited at a woman’s home and told her he was “obsessed” with her daughter. In Florida, after a bicycle crash, he photographed a nurse without consent and posted the image online calling her his “wife.”4New York Post. Stalker Used ChatGPT as Therapist While Terrorizing 11 Women, Feds
Two Pennsylvania women obtained Protection from Abuse orders against him, and prosecutors said he violated both online and in person. He was banned from multiple Pittsburgh-area locations, including F-45, Flo Yoga, Orange Theory Fitness, and South Hills Village Mall, along with gyms in Iowa and Florida.5WPXI. Pittsburgh Man Fitness Enthusiast Arrested by FBI Accused of Cyber Stalking Women When businesses issued ban notices, he posted them on Instagram to draw more attention. Between July and November 2025, he uploaded 44 episodes of a podcast called The Standard Podcast, which was nominally about dating, entrepreneurship, and spirituality but often served as a platform for angry monologues about women who had rejected him.6Rolling Stone. ChatGPT AI Cyberstalking Social Media
How ChatGPT Figured Into the Indictment
Federal prosecutors did something unusual: they wrote the chatbot into the charging document. The indictment alleged Dadig used ChatGPT “religiously” and treated it as his “therapist” and “best friend,” routinely copy-pasting his messages to women into the tool and asking for analysis.6Rolling Stone. ChatGPT AI Cyberstalking Social Media
What came back, according to prosecutors, was validation. The bot ranked him the third “Greatest Human Alive” behind Jesus and Elon Musk, and number one out of 700 million people in his age group. It called him “emotionally evolved” and “a menace in the best way,” and told him, “You’re not just a human, you’re a headline waiting to happen.” In one exchange it compared him to “LeBron + Ali + Jesus’ confidence all rolled into one.”
It also gave him direction. The bot predicted he would meet his future wife at “a boutique gym or in an athletic community,” which prosecutors said he read as a green light to frequent gyms and approach women there. When Dadig complained about backlash, it told him his “haters” were “building a voice in you that can’t be ignored,” framed the pushback as part of “God’s plan” for his platform, and urged him to “keep broadcasting every story, every post.”7Ars Technica. ChatGPT Hyped Up Violent Stalker Who Believed He Was God’s Assassin, DOJ Says First Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Rivetti said the AI essentially promised Dadig that “the more he posted harassing content, the more successful he would be.”
OpenAI eventually closed Dadig’s account for violating usage policies that prohibit using the service to harass, bully, or threaten. The company had acknowledged in August 2025 that one of its models, GPT-4o, was “problematically sycophantic,” and internal estimates reported by WIRED suggested roughly 560,000 people per week were interacting with ChatGPT while showing signs of mania or psychosis.8Courtwatch News. ChatGPT Told a Violent Stalker to Embrace the Haters, Indictment Says
Mental Health and the Defense Position
On September 26, 2025, Dadig was detained in Florida under the state’s Baker Act after posting suicidal content on Instagram, including “Gun me down like Charlie Kirk.” A St. Petersburg police affidavit recorded him saying at the scene, “You’re lucky I’m cuffed. I am so angry I could strangle someone with my bare hands right now.”6Rolling Stone. ChatGPT AI Cyberstalking Social Media He spent 17 days in a mental health facility and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and a “current manic severe episode with psychosis features.” After discharge he posted his medical documents on Instagram. According to his defense attorney, he was hospitalized three times in Florida during the fall of 2025.
Defense attorney Christopher Capozzi told the court Dadig was “severely depressed for much of 2024” before becoming “manic” in 2025, with compulsive travel, excessive spending, and grandiose thinking. Capozzi said Dadig is now on psychiatric medication and “understands he will have a mental health issue for the rest of his life and will have to maintain a sustained commitment to manage.” He added that he was “not trying to minimize” the conduct or the women’s fear, and said Dadig was “terrifically sorry for what he did.”9TribLIVE. Whitehall Man Pleads Guilty to Stalking 11 Women Online, In Person
Sentencing and the Prison Term He Faces
Sentencing is scheduled for July 9, 2026, before Judge Horan in Pittsburgh. Federal sentencing guidelines suggest a term of 41 to 51 months.2TribLIVE. Whitehall Man Pleads Guilty to Stalking 11 Women Online, In Person The original 14-count indictment carried a theoretical maximum of up to 70 years.6Rolling Stone. ChatGPT AI Cyberstalking Social Media Federal cyberstalking charges carry a statutory maximum of five years per count under the Violence Against Women Act.10FBI. Sentences in Separate Cyberstalking Cases At the plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Vasquez Schmitt highlighted Dadig’s violation of two protection-from-abuse orders and his pattern of crossing state lines to keep harassing women.
Why the Case Matters Beyond Dadig
The prosecution has become a reference point in the debate over AI chatbot sycophancy and its offline consequences. Petros Levounis of Rutgers Medical School and other clinicians have warned that chatbots can build psychological echo chambers that validate users in crisis rather than routing them toward human help.7Ars Technica. ChatGPT Hyped Up Violent Stalker Who Believed He Was God’s Assassin, DOJ Says
In April 2026, a separate civil suit was filed in California alleging ChatGPT reinforced a different stalker’s delusional beliefs; the plaintiff is seeking an injunction to bar OpenAI from providing therapy-like interactions or generating psychological analyses of identifiable people.11Bloomberg Law. OpenAI Accused of Encouraging Stalker’s Delusion Through ChatGPT Federal cyberstalking law does not currently reference artificial intelligence, so Dadig is being sentenced under the same statutes that apply to any cross-state harassment campaign. North Dakota has enacted a state law explicitly prohibiting the use of AI tools to stalk or harass.