A teenage Pennsylvania cheerleader who became the target of “deeply false” videos and images last summer from the mother of a rival who wanted her out of the team, said on Monday that she thought no one would believe if she spoke.
Madi Hime was 16 when her Victory Vipers cheerleader approached her and two other colleagues in July about images and videos that appeared to show them naked or in bikinis, drinking alcohol and smoking vaporizers, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer: citing a statement submitted by the Bucks County district attorney’s office.
“I got in the car and started to cry, and I thought, ‘That’s not me in the video,'” Hime, now 17, told Good Morning America on Monday. “I thought if I said that, no one would believe me because, obviously, there is evidence, there is a video – but obviously that video has been manipulated.”
Hime told the channel that someone posing as a concerned mother sent messages to her. When she replied, she received an automatic response about changing a phone number.
Hime said he told his mother, Jennifer Hime, who then contacted the Hilltown police. The investigators determined that the photos and videos were “deep fakes”, created using photos from the girls’ social media profiles and overlaying them with different images to make them authentic. The police tracked the phone numbers to a website that specializes in selling phone numbers to telemarketers.
The investigators subpoenaed information about the IP address, allowing them to trace the threatening messages to Raffaela Marine Spone’s home. Police said investigators found evidence on Spone’s cell phone connecting her to the numbers used to harass the girls.
Raffaela Marine Spone faces up to six months to a year in prison if convicted.
(Hilltown Township Police Department)
Spone, 50, of Chalfont, was arrested on March 5 and charged with three counts of cyber harassment of a child and three of harassment, according to online records from the Hilltown Police Department.
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Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub told the Washington Post that Spone was not charged with a more serious crime because the tampered photos included skin tone bars to create a “Barbie doll effect” to make the girls look naked, but ” without obvious genitalia. ”
Weintraub said Spone could face six months to a year in prison if convicted.
Her lawyer, Robert Birch, told Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV on Monday that he cannot comment on her case because Weintraub allegedly has not provided any evidence.
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“She totally denied what she was accused of, and because it made it to the press, she received death threats. She herself had to go to the police, they have a report. His life has been turned upside down, “said Birch.
Danielle Wallace of Fox News contributed to this report.