Arizona

Arizona lawmakers give nod of approval to harsher penalties for AI crimes

Published

2 years ago

February 22, 2024

Arizona lawmakers give nod of approval to harsher penalties for AI crimes

SCOTTSDALE, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) — A Scottsdale mother’s fight to stop scammers from using artificial intelligence is gaining traction among Arizona lawmakers. Legislation, Senate Bill 1599, could make punishments more severe for people who use AI to commit crimes, and at a recent committee hearing, it received unanimous support.

Last year, Jennifer DeStefano received a phone call from a scammer who used AI to clone her 15-year-old daughter’s voice and fake a kidnapping. “She goes, ‘Mom. These bad men have me. Help me. Help me. Help me,’ and starts pleading and crying and sobbing in a voice very familiar that I’ve known for 15 years,’” DeStefano said.

The ransom demand started at a million dollars. That wasn’t possible, so the scammers dropped the price to $50,000. “Not only did they want it in cash, but they also wanted to come pick me up in a white van, put a bag over my head and transport me to my daughter with all the money. And if not, we both were dead,” DeStefano told Arizona state lawmakers. “As I’m making these arrangements, my 13-year-old daughter is listening, thinking she’s lost her sister and now she’s going to lose her mother.”

There was no kidnapping, but for a few minutes, it all felt so real. “I had had an interactive conversation. It was her cries, her sobs, unique to her. A mother knows her child,” DeStefano said.

On Your Side’s first report on this AI scam captured the attention of Sen. Jon Ossoff from Georgia, who invited DeStefano to testify on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers vowed action. DeStefano is grateful state lawmakers are calling for change as AI technology rapidly improves. “Unfortunately, the police were not able to do anything because there’s no laws in place to allow them to do anything,” DeStefano testified. “Unfortunately, it was considered a prank call.”

State Sen. Justine Wadsack, a Republican, introduced SB 1599, which would amend state law to make using AI in a crime an ‘aggravating circumstance’ in sentencing. Basically, it would make AI a weapon, so just as criminals could face harsher punishments for using a gun while committing a crime, criminals could also face harsher punishments for using artificial intelligence while committing a crime.

DeStefano’s daughter, Brianna, was by her side to tell Arizona lawmakers about her experience. “This scam has deeply affected my life,” she said. “As a young girl still in high school, it’s difficult being able to walk out even just walking my dogs at night. Hanging out with my friends, going to the bathroom alone, you never know where anyone could be at any point in time.”

Brianna says she is not outspoken on social media and doesn’t know where scammers got her voice to clone. But as On Your Side has reported, it doesn’t take more than a few seconds of a voice sample to get a realistic fake. “I want girls to be aware of this instance and know how to protect themselves against this problem as well as the government being able to protect them,” the younger DeStefano said.

There is opposition to the bill. The ACLU of Arizona and Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice are on the record against it. The ACLU believes it’s too broad and doesn’t describe what constitutes artificial intelligence or acknowledge that the use of AI could be incidental to a crime.

Though the bill received a unanimous vote of support in the Senate Transportation, Technology and Missing Children committee, it has not been scheduled for a vote on the floor. DeStefano is optimistic. “Arizona is being a pioneer and it’s amazing and I’m so thankful,” she said. “This is our government at play, being representatives of the people, speaking for the people and bringing forth our concerns and our needs to protect us.”

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Arizona

Arizona, career nights from Burries, Krivas beat K-State

Published

4 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Arizona, career nights from Burries, Krivas beat K-State

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Brayden Burries scored 28 points, Motiejus Krivas added a career-high 25 and No. 1 Arizona remained unbeaten with a 101-76 win over Kansas State on Wednesday night.

Arizona (15-0, 2-0 Big 12) is off to its best start since winning the first 21 games of the 2013-14 season. Arizona won by at least 18 points for the 10th consecutive game, matching a mark Michigan had earlier this season that tied for the longest such run since 2003-04.

Burries had his fifth 20-point game and matched his career high by going 12 for 16 from the field while adding nine rebounds. It was his 10th straight game in double figures, including at least 20 points in five of those, after just one over his first five.

Krivas was 7 of 10, making 11 of 13 free throws, and had 12 rebounds.

Koa Peat had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Tobe Awaka added nine and 11 as Arizona outrebounded Kansas State 55-32. Arizona shot 49.3% from the field but was just 3 of 16 from 3-point range.

Kansas State (9-6, 0-2) went 8 for 36 from deep and shot 33.8% overall. PJ Haggerty led the way with 19 points on 8-of-20 shooting, while Nate Johnson added 15 and Dorin Buca 12.

Down 15 at the half, Kansas State pulled within 58-49 with 16:09 left on a 3-pointer by Johnson. Arizona responded with a 6-0 run and kept the margin at least 12 the rest of the way. Back-to-back dunks by Burries and Peat and a corner 3-pointer by Jaden Bradley keyed a 13-0 run to put Arizona ahead 92-65 with 3:31 remaining.

It built a 10-point lead less than six minutes into the game and upped it to 20 with 2:52 left in the first half. Burries had 16 before halftime.

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Arizona

Arizona HS football’s No. 1 2027 prospect has ASU, Miami high on list

Published

16 hours ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Arizona HS football’s No. 1 2027 prospect has ASU, Miami high on list

Hildebrand is ranked as the No. 13 overall offensive tackle in the nation for the 2027 class by 247Sports.
Arizona State, Miami, Alabama, Texas A&M and USC are among his current favorites.
The 6-foot-6 left tackle has started every varsity game since his freshman year at Chandler Basha.

Chandler Basha left tackle Jake Hildebrand, the state’s No. 1 2027 college football prospect, said Arizona State and Miami are among the top potential schools on his recently revealed 10-best list.

Miami is playing in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl as part of the College Football Playoff semifinal against Ole Miss at State Farm Stadium in Glendale on Jan. 8.

Hildebrand, 6-foot-6, 293 pounds, has started every varsity game since his freshman year and helped lead the Bears to the Open Division state title this past season. He won’t be able to attend the Fiesta Bowl because he’s in San Antonio, getting ready to play in the Jan. 10 Navy All-American Bowl. The game airs at 11 a.m. MST on NBC.

Hildebrand also has CFP semifinalists Indiana and Oregon, along with Texas A&M, Alabama, USC, Ohio State and Texas among his top 10 colleges.

“A few schools that are my favorite from the top 10 are ASU, Alabama, Texas A&M, Miami and USC,” Hildebrand said in a direct message to The Arizona Republic. “They have definitely been the schools that have been contacting me the most and built the best relationship with.”

There is no timetable for when Hildebrand will commit. He could wait until he makes trips this spring, summer and fall. But he is among the most coveted left tackles in the country, who has 38 offers, according to 247Sports.

The 247Sports Composite has Hildebrand ranked as the No. 13 overall offensive tackle in the country in the 2027 class. He is ranked No. 1 in the class of 2027 by The Republic.

Richard Obert has been covering high school sports since the 1980s for The Arizona Republic. Catch the best high school sports coverage in the state. Sign up for Azcentral Preps Now. And be sure to subscribe to our daily sports newsletters so you don’t miss a thing. To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter:@azc_obert

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Future of Arizona’s Oak Flat faces pivotal day in Phoenix courtroom

Published

1 day ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Future of Arizona’s Oak Flat faces pivotal day in Phoenix courtroom

Three lawsuits are before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to prevent the U.S. Forest Service from transferring Oak Flat to a mining company.
The site, sacred to Apache and other Native peoples, would be destroyed by a proposed copper mine by Resolution Copper.
The land exchange was authorized in 2014 through a last-minute addition to a defense bill, sparking a decade-long battle.

Three lawsuits aiming to keep the U.S. Forest Service from turning over Oak Flat to a mining company for a massive copper mine go in front of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for arguments Jan. 7.

The British-Australian firm Resolution Copper has long sought the exchange to build a mine that bodes to obliterate a site Apaches and other Native peoples hold sacred. It also is one of Arizona’s few functional wetlands.

Two lawsuits filed by the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a coalition of environmentalists and the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona challenged the land exchange, authorized by a last-minute amendment to a “must-pass” defense bill in December 2014. The arguments in the lawsuits are based on the tribe’s religious beliefs and on environmental concerns, including disputes over water usage and possible damage of one of central Arizona’s key aquifers.

In the third suit, the latest to be filed, a group of Apache women who have spiritual and cultural connections to the site argue that the exchange would violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the First Amendment’s religious rights protections and two environmental laws.

Their lawsuit also brought two new factors into play: a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that affirms parental rights to direct their children’s religious education and references to Justice Neil Gorsuch’s blistering dissent to the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear another case related to the land exchange.

A three-judge panel will hear the cases at the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse in Phoenix.

Religious rights advocates and First Amendment experts have said the ability of Native peoples to exercise their religious rights is at stake.

Oak Flat story: As an Apache girl enters womanhood, lawsuits and tariffs cast shadows

The struggle over Oak Flat nears 30-year mark

For more than two decades, Oak Flat Campground, known to Apaches as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, “the place where the Emory oak grows,” has been ground zero in a battle over Native religious rights on public lands as well as environmental preservation for a scarce Arizona ecosystem.

The 2,200-acre primitive campground and riparian zone, within the Tonto National Forest about 60 miles east of Phoenix, also lies over one of the nation’s largest remaining bodies of copper ore.

To obtain the copper, Resolution, which is owned by multinational firms Rio Tinto and BHP, plans to use a method known as block cave mining in which tunnels are drilled beneath the ore body, and then collapsed, leaving the ore to be moved to a crushing facility.

Eventually, the ground would subside, leaving behind a crater about 1,000 feet deep and nearly 2 miles across, obliterating Oak Flat.

Resolution Copper, a British-Australian mining firm, sought Congressional approval to exchange other parcels of land it had purchased with the U.S. Forest Service for nearly 10 years when the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and other officials engineered a late-night rider to a must-pass defense bill in December 2014. Then-President Barack Obama signed the bill and ever since, tribes, environmentalists and their allies have fought to stop the exchange.

Resolution has said that the mine would bring much-needed jobs and revenues to the economically challenged Copper Triangle to the tune of about $1 billion a year. The company has provided funding to support recovery from the floods that devastated downtown Globe in October and has supported other community organizations.

In November, Resolution announced it had completed rehabilitation of the historic No. 9 shaft at the Magma minehead, including deepening it to nearly 6,900 feet and connecting it to the No. 10 shaft, which plunges about 6,940 feet below the surface.

Vicky Peacey, president and general manager of Resolution, said the shaft project was a huge milestone, employing homegrown talent from surrounding communities to get the job done.

Despite the ongoing litigation, she said, “We are ready to advance this important copper project, enabling thousands of high-paying jobs, billions in economic development for rural Arizona, and access to a domestic supply of copper essential to American security and modern infrastructure.”

Grassroots group Apache Stronghold, led by former San Carlos Apache Tribal Chairman Wendsler Nosie, filed the first lawsuit to stop the exchange. That litigation was declined twice by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2025, but Apache Stronghold continues to fight the land exchange as the group supports the other three lawsuits.

Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate, culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach Krol at debra.krol@azcentral.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @debkrol and on Bluesky at @debkrol.bsky.social.

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