FLORIDA — A Fort Myers man says he was wrongfully arrested for attempting to lure a child after police relied on facial recognition technology that incorrectly identified him as a suspect, leading to months of prosecution before charges were dropped.
According to the lawsuit, Robert Dillon claims law enforcement agencies and officers used an artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition system to identify him as the suspect in a 2023 child luring case at a Jacksonville Beach McDonald's, despite evidence that he says would have cleared him.
The lawsuit states 52-year-old Dillon had never been to Jacksonville Beach and lived more than 300 miles away in Fort Myers. He claims investigators relied on a facial recognition search that reportedly produced a "93% match" from surveillance images and failed to pursue other investigative steps that could have ruled him out as a suspect.
The complaint accuses the Jacksonville Beach police of using low-quality surveillance images taken from a computer screen and submitting them through the Face Analysis Comparison and Examination System (FACES), a facial recognition database operated by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
According to the lawsuit, investigators later obtained a photo lineup identification from a McDonald's manager who said she recognized the suspect as a regular customer but did not witness the alleged interaction between the child and the suspect. Dillon claims the identification was tainted because it was based on the same facial recognition lead.
The lawsuit also claims investigators failed to disclose several pieces of potentially exculpatory information when seeking an arrest warrant, including Dillon's statements that he had never been to Jacksonville Beach, license plate reader data that did not place his vehicles in the area and that the suspect was described as a regular customer at the restaurant.
Dillon was arrested at his Fort Myers home in August 2024 and charged with luring or enticing a child under 12. Court records cited in the lawsuit show prosecutors dropped the charge in October 2024, about two months after his arrest.
The lawsuit seeks damages and alleges violations of Dillon's constitutional rights, as well as claims related to his arrest, prosecution, and the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement agencies. Defendants include the City of Jacksonville Beach, Jacksonville Beach police officer Scott O'Connell, and Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Sgt. James Walters, Jacksonville Sheriff, T.K. Waters, and Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.
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