Questions

Question 1

Are you currently in college?

Answer 1

Yes, I am a freshman at Chronos County Community College (CCCC) in Poseidon, New York.

Question 2

Why did you decide to attend chronos county community college?

Answer 2

It is the only college my parents can afford at the time, since CCCC doesn’t offer academic scholarships.

Question 3

What are you studying?

Answer 3

I am hoping to get into SUNY at Poseidon in a couple of years to become a premier applications computer programmer.

Question 4

Where did you go to high school?

Answer 4

I went to Athena High in Poseidon New York.

Question 5

How was your highschool experience?

Answer 5

It was remarkable, but the highlight of my highschool career was being in the Computer Science Club.

Question 6

Can you describe your experience with the Computer science club?

Answer 6

Yes, I served the club for two years. First, as a freshman I was the club’s treasurer, and then as a sophomore I was the club’s secretary. My junior year I would have been vice president but I lost the election to Sandy Townes.

Question 7

So you know the defendant, Sandy Townes?

Answer 7

Yes.

Question 8

Can you please briefly tell the court how you know Sandy Townes?

Answer 8

We were in the Computer Science club together and we also had AP Computer Science together with our teacher Jaime King.

Question 9

Is there a date that you can recall where you had a negative interaction with Sandy Townes?

Answer 9

Yes, October 2021.

Question 10

What happened in October of 2021?

Answer 10

I saw Townes and a couple of other students I didn’t know in the computer science room creating graphics poking fun at Superintendent Manns.

Question 11

How did you respond to seeing Townes making these graphics?

Answer 11

I told Townes that I did not find them clever or funny. But they told me to mind my own business and to go away.

Question 12

Did the graphics stop after that?

Answer 12

No, over time they became more crude and vile.

Question 13

How do you know that the graphics didn’t stop?

Answer 13

They were often posted on the District’s electronic community bulletin boards.

Question 14

If I showed you these graphics, would you recognize them?

Answer 14

Yes.

Question 15

Graphics Would you identify them, please?”

Answer 15

These are the computer graphics I saw Townes making.

Question 16

“How do you know that these are the graphics?

Answer 16

I saw them while they were being made in the computer science room, and again when they were posted in the District’s online community bulletin board

Question 17

“Are these a fair and accurate representation of the images you saw in October 2021?”

Answer 17

Yes they are.

Question 18

Did you report these graphics at the time they were posted?

Answer 18

No, not at the time. I was scared that if the Superintendent found out they were made in the computer science room, there would be serious consequences.

Question 19

Did you ever report the graphics?

Answer 19

Yes, when the investigator spoke to me about the AI Deep Fakes in 2024, I mentioned that Townes was the ringleader of making the graphics.

Question 20

Now let’s fast forward to the next school year, 2022-2023. Do you remember this year?

Answer 20

Yes, it was my junior year.

Question 21

Were you still a part of the Computer science club?

Answer 21

Yes, but I was no longer an officer thanks to Sandy Townes.

Question 22

What do you mean by that?

Answer 22

I lost the election for Vice President to Sandy Townes because they made a bunch of promises to the club members to win the election, but as I found out later, none of that ever came true.

Question 23

How did you feel about losing the election to Townes?

Answer 23

I felt like I deserved the position after serving the club well for two years.

Question 24

What impact did losing the election have on you?

Answer 24

Well, many colleges put a premium on extra curricular activities. I felt like if I had become vice president, I would have gotten a full ride to SUNY at Poseidon. But I didn’t, so now I have to wait out my two years at CCCC.

Question 25

Do you blame Townes for not getting into SUNY at Poseidon?

Answer 25

I was bothered at first, but I am in college now, and have moved on from my dislike of Townes.

Question 26

Did you interact with Townes any more that year?

Answer 26

Yes, we both took Jamie King’s AP computer science course in the Spring Semester of 2023.

Question 27

What, if anything, happened while you were in that course?

Answer 27

We had to write a paper on generative AI.

Question 28

Why do you remember that specifically?

Answer 28

Because I remember how much Townes bragged about how much they understood Generative AI and how they got an A+ on the paper.

Question 29

Do you remember what topic Townes wrote about?

Answer 29

It was about Generative AI and how to use it to make new text, images, video, and audio files.

Question 30

What was the title of your paper?

Answer 30

“The Future of Generative AI and How to Prevent Malicious Abuse”

Question 31

What grade did you receive on the paper?

Answer 31

B-

Question 32

Do you remember what grade Townes received on the paper?

Answer 32

Yes, Townes got an A+

Question 33

How did you feel about this?

Answer 33

It doesn’t really bother me, I just wish Townes wasn’t in your face bragging about it.

Question 34

Let’s fast forward to the spring of the next school year. Do you remember the date April 1st, 2024?

Answer 34

Yes.

Question 35

Please briefly explain to the court what you remember about that date

Answer 35

I saw a video posted on RicRoc, of Superintendent Manns accepting a $50,000 bribe from a building contractor.

Question 36

How did you react when you saw this video?

Answer 36

Well it showed my favorite superintendent accepting a bribe, I thought it was a cruel April fool’s prank.

Question 37

Then what happened?

Answer 37

On April 2nd I saw a post about Leyton Manns on SeddIT

Question 38

Can you describe the post please?

Answer 38

In the post, Manns is making disturbing comments about students, parents, and teachers associated with Athena High.

Question 39

What were your thoughts after seeing these posts?

Answer 39

I knew for sure that the audio recording and the video were deepfakes. I was thoroughly shaken by these occurrences.

Question 40

So how did you become involved in this case between Leyton Manns and Sandy Townes?

Answer 40

When I read the April 7th Chronos Chronicle Article calling Dr. Manns to withdraw from the Senate Race and resign from the county after the release of the video and audio recordings, I reached out to the county sheriff’s office.

Question 41

When did you contact the sheriff’s investigator?

Answer 41

April 8th, 2024

Question 42

Why did you contact the Sheriff’s investigator?

Answer 42

To tell them that the two postings were deep fakes and about the Quickchat message I had received from Townes.

Question 43

To be clear, had an investigator reached out to you about these matters?

Answer 43

No, I contacted them after I saw the April 7th Chronos County article.

Question 44

Do you know the plaintiff, Leyton Manns?

Answer 44

Yes.

Question 45

How do you know the plaintiff, Leyton Manns?

Answer 45

She was the superintendent of Athena high while I was a student there.

Question 46

Why did you decide to testify on behalf of Leyton Manns?

Answer 46

Dr. Manns is an honest and noble public servant. I look forward to assisting Dr. Manns in getting justice.

Question 47

You mentioned a Quickchat message to the investigator, can you briefly tell the court more about that?

Answer 47

Townes had sent a message to the executive committee of the Athena High computer science club and I had received the message accidentally.

Question 48

Do you remember when this was posted?

Answer 48

Sometime in June during the academic year 2022-2023

Question 49

How did you see the Quickchat message?

Answer 49

I was still accidentally on the computer science Executive committee group chat on Quickchat.

Question 50

Why did the Quickchat message from Townes stand out to you?

Answer 50

At the time, I thought that the message was just Townes blowing off steam.

Question 51

Can you recall what Townes posted on QuickChat?

Answer 51

I remember seeing that Townes promised to make Manns pay dearly for defunding the Computer Science Club.

Question 52

Was there anything else on the QuickChat message?

Answer 52

There was also a statement to the effect of, no one would vote for Manns after seeing the RicRoc Video and hearing the juicy audio recording.

Question 53

Do you have proof that Townes posted this?

Answer 53

No, I did not think to take a picture at the time, I regret my decision now

Question 54

You mentioned earlier that you also reported the graphics you saw created in October of 2021 to the investigator. Why?

Answer 54

Well it wasn’t a great leap to believe that if Townes could stoop to making those disgusting graphics, that they could also make the audio and video recordings.

Question 55

Why do you so strongly believe it could be Sandy Townes who created the recordings?

Answer 55

Townes has shown some mastery in using generative AI, there is no question in my mind that Townes was capable of producing them.

Question 56

As the investigation progressed, were there any other details that you remembered about those days?

Answer 56

Yes, I remembered that on April 1st, I had seen Sandy Townes coming out of the computer club room.

Question 57

Why do you remember that?

Answer 57

Townes was exiting the Computer Science room in a rush. I tried to make a conversation with them but they didn’t seem interested.

Question 58

Did you interact at all?

Answer 58

They asked me what time it was, and I told them it was 12:55. I remember this because they said they couldn’t talk because they had to make it to their 1 o'clock calculus class.

Question 59

Had you seen Townes earlier that day?

Answer 59

No, our lunch period starts everyday at noon, and on that day I did not see Sandy in the cafeteria.