No, daughter of alternative health promoter Dr. Sebi was not sentenced to prison | Fact check

Gabrielle Settles, USA TODAY
Updated ·3 min read

The claim: Dr. Sebi’s daughter was sentenced to 155 years in prison for spreading secret health tips

A March 4 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows a young girl who appears to be sitting in a courtroom in an orange jumpsuit with handcuffs on her wrists.

“Dr. Sebi’s daughter was SENTENCED to 155 years in prison for revealing TOP SECRET health hacks,” reads text on top of the image.

The post was shared more than 2,000 times in a week and was also shared on TikTok.

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Our rating: False

There is no credible evidence that the daughter of controversial alternative medicine promoter Dr. Sebi was sentenced to prison for sharing health practices. The image used in the claim is likely AI-generated, experts said.

Key signs are clues of likely AI generation, experts say

Dr. Sebi, whose real name was Alfredo Bowman, was a self-proclaimed healer who used alternative health practices. While he was popular among celebrities including singer Michael Jackson, rapper Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and actor Eddie Murphy, Bowman was also controversial for baselessly claiming to have cured diseases including AIDS and cancer.

Several of his claims have been fact-checked before and found to be false, including the theories that drinking urine will improve eyesight or that mucus is the cause of every disease. Bowman died of pneumonia in 2016 while in prison in Honduras for charges of money laundering.

Bowman has daughters and sons who have shared his health messages, but there is no credible evidence that any of them have been arrested for it. No reports from reputable media sources back up this claim.

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Experts said several elements within the social media picture were consistent with an AI-generated image, though they couldn’t say with certainty that the picture was indeed made by AI.

V.S. Subrahmanian, a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Northwestern University, told USA TODAY that one key sign was the way the handcuffs appeared on the girl’s wrists.

“There is a pair of what look like black handcuffs on the girl's hands, apparently locking both hands together near the wrist," Subrahmanian said in an email. "But if you look a little further behind, the girl's left forearm seems to have a separate handcuff that apparently just goes around her left forearm, not locking anything, which is strange."

The girl’s hands also appear twisted into one. Michelle Johnson, a professor emerita of journalism at Boston University, told USA TODAY “there was definitely something off" about them.

“That’s certainly one thing to look for when you’re trying to assess whether something is an AI image,” Johnson said. “Developers have been trying hard to fix that issue, and it has gotten better, but if you generate four images with hands, I’d say half would look okay and half would have some kind of glitch.”

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dr. Sebi's daughter not sentenced to prison | Fact check