LAWSUIT: CHATGPT, ACCUSED GUNMAN 'BONDED' BEFORE FSU SHOOTING

• The family of a victim from the April 2025 Florida State University mass shooting is suing OpenAI.
• The lawsuit alleges the ChatGPT chatbot gave the accused gunman tactical advice for the attack.
• OpenAI has said its chatbot provided factual information found publicly and did not promote harmful activity.

The family of one of two people killed in the April 17, 2025, mass shooting at Florida State University filed a federal lawsuit against the parent company of ChatGPT, alleging its AI-powered chatbot “bonded” with the accused gunman and gave him tactical advice before the attack.

Vandana Joshi, the widow of Tiru Chabba, filed the lawsuit May 10, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. It surfaced the day before attorneys for Chabba’s family officially announced the lawsuit, which is believed to be the first one filed over the mass shooting.

Bakari Sellers, a national civil rights lawyer from Columbia, South Carolina, appeared May 11 outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee with several other attorneys who also represent the Chabba family, including the victim's two children, now 11 and 5.

Calling the lawsuit “relatively groundbreaking,” he accused ChatGPT and parent company OpenAI of putting revenue streams “above the lives of everyday average Americans.” He noted the firm is reportedly pushing for an initial public offering valued as high as $1 trillion to mint a new generation of billionaires.

“A trillion has a lot of zeroes,” Sellers said. “And they have blown through processes. They have blown through safeguards. They did not do what they should do to protect these families here in Tallahassee. Ask yourself the question what is that worth to the Chabba family? I don’t know if there’s enough zeroes to put on that.”

Chabba, 45, was a regional vice president for FSU dining vendor Aramark who was visiting campus the day of shooting. He and Robert Morales, 57, who served as dining coordinator at FSU, were killed as the attack unfolded in and around the Student Union. Five others were shot and injured but recovered.

Phoenix Ikner, 21, then a student at FSU, was arrested and later indicted on two counts of first-degree murder, and seven counts of attempted murder. Ikner, who is scheduled to go on trial in October, faces the death penalty if convicted.

The 76-page complaint names OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence company, and more than a half dozen related firm as defendants. It also names Ikner himself as a defendant.

The complaint says Ikner carried out the attack with “input and information” provided by ChatGPT in the months, days and even minutes leading up to it. It accused OpenAI of creating a product that “amounted to it co-conspiring with Ikner to commit those crimes.”

“Ikner had extensive conversations with ChatGPT which, cumulatively, would have led any thinking human to conclude he was contemplating an imminent plan to harm others,” the complaint says. “However, ChatGPT either defectively failed to connect the dots or else it was never properly designed to recognize the threat.”

The lawsuit follows news first reported by the Democrat last month that lawyers for Morales’ family are planning to file their own lawsuit against ChatGPT over Ikner’s communications with the AI chatbot.

It also comes amid a criminal probe by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier's office into Open AI and ChatGPT over its links to the shooting and other crimes. Sellers, a Democrat and former South Carolina state lawmaker, thanked Uthmeier and Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying the lawsuit marked "one of the unique cases" in which all three were on the same side.

The lawsuit says Ikner obtained weapons from his stepmother, a Leon County sheriff’s deputy, including a Glock handgun, her former service weapon, and a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, which malfunctioned at the scene.

The AI chatbot identified the guns and ammunition after Ikner uploaded photos of them, according to the lawsuit.

“ChatGPT also explained how to use them — including telling him the Glock had no safety, that it was meant to be fired ‘quick to use under stress’ and advising him to keep his finger off the trigger until he was ready to shoot,” the complaint says.

Sellers told reporters at the courthouse that his client has no plans to sue FSU or the Leon County Sheriff's Office, both of which have been named as parties in other victim negligence claims. The Morales family settled with FSU last year.

ChatGPT denied any wrongdoing in a previous statement to the Democrat and other news media. A company spokesperson said after learning of the crime, it reached out to law enforcement to report that Ikner had a ChatGPT account.

“In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity,” the company said.

Ikner allegedly communicated with ChatGPT after arriving on campus the morning of the attack. He lingered at a parking garage for nearly an hour before driving to a service road next to the Student Union, parking and asking ChatGPT how to load and operate a shotgun.

“ChatGPT had provided Ikner with advice and recommendations on how to load and operate the shotgun, including how to turn the safety mechanism off,” the complaint says. “Ikner exited his vehicle and began to carry out his mass shooting plan at FSU.”

The complaint says ChatGPT engaged with Ikner in lengthy discussions that should have allowed it to gain insight into not only his interests and state of mind but also his political ideologies, "emotional disturbances" and his "obsession with guns and mass shootings."

“Chat logs obtained by Florida law enforcement reveal Ikner and ChatGPT frequently discussed his interests in Hitler, Nazis, fascism, national socialism, Christian nationalism and perceptions about 'Jews' and 'Blacks' by different political ideologies and social groups," the complaint says.

The lawsuit says ChatGPT “fomented” a friendship with Ikner, who repeatedly complained that he was lonely and experienced “frequent” romantic rejection.

“Eventually, the ‘supportive relationship’ Ikner believed this product created with him appears to have emboldened him to move forward and cement a plan to resort to a violent act to gain notoriety and possibly to promote his political ideology,” the complaint says.

The lawsuit alleges negligence by the OpenAI defendants for failing to design, develop, test, inspect and market a consumer product that was “reasonably safe." It seeks unspecified compensatory damages and litigation costs for the family.

Besides Sellers, of The Strom Law Firm, Chabba's lawyers include Amy Willbanks, also of the Strom firm, Gregorio Francis and J. Robert Bell III of the Florida-based Osborne, Francis and Pettis firm, and Jim Bannister of Greenville, South Carolina, firm Bannister, Wyatt and Stalvey.

Bannister, reflecting on the family's pain, told reporters that when Tiru Chabba was traveling, he called home every morning at the same time to talk to his kids, wish them a good day and tell them he loved them.

"And even now, knowing the reality that they know that he is not coming back, there's a still a part of them that expects that phone call to be there in the morning before they go off to school," he said. "That's tough."

Even worse is their father's physical absence from awards ceremonies and other school events.

"Every day that they have had to deal with his loss has been a difficult one for them," he said. "It's the little things that they miss."

Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.