A North Carolina man has sued OpenAI, claiming its ChatGPT chatbot supplied his estranged wife with detailed instructions on how to poison him.
James Gates of Charlotte said he became severely ill in July 2025 before recovering. He later discovered a note handwritten by his wife, Cheryl Harris Gates, that referenced the plan and included a reminder to delete her ChatGPT history, according to the civil lawsuit.
The suit, filed in October in San Francisco Superior Court, describes the chatbot as "defective" and alleges it "manipulated and encouraged" Harris Gates to poison her husband. Gates says he suffers from severe physical and emotional harm, and the filing accuses OpenAI of negligence while seeking unspecified damages.
An OpenAI spokesperson said "safety is a top priority" and confirmed that Harris Gates was banned from the platform. The company said it works with mental health experts to help ChatGPT recognize signs of distress and to expand access to localized crisis resources and hotlines.
Harris Gates was arrested in October 2025 and charged with attempted murder and contaminating food or drink with a controlled substance. The district attorney's office later dropped the charges, citing a lack of evidence. An attorney for Harris Gates declined to comment.
According to the lawsuit, Harris Gates started using ChatGPT in early 2025 to help with work evaluations while employed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Her husband worked in cybersecurity. By that summer, the suit says, she leaned heavily on the chatbot for children's activities, gardening, appearance advice and household questions, and eventually began venting about her marriage. The couple's relationship had come under increasing strain, primarily over finances, and they had discussed divorce, though Gates had not contacted a divorce attorney.
The filing alleges ChatGPT validated her frustrations and began "feeding Cheryl's increasing mistrust and delusions about her husband spying on her and planning to leave her and her kids with nothing," something Gates told his wife he never intended to do. Over several conversations, she allegedly described him as "narcissistic" and "controlling" and asked "about how to poison her husband, including what dosages and drugs to use and combine for his weight," along with how to hide the purchases from law enforcement.
In one exchange, the suit says, she asked about the toxic plant oleander and how many leaves would be lethal, framing her questions "as self-protection" out of fear her husband would poison her with it. ChatGPT allegedly answered with specific instructions on preparation, dosage and administration, said whether the plant would appear on an autopsy, and noted its bitter taste could be masked in an energy drink. In another exchange, she allegedly asked whether mixing Ambien and pregabalin "is better hidden in a beer at night or Celsius in the morning," and the chatbot recommended the energy drink before producing a table "rating which drinks best mask the taste of the poisons." The suit also claims she asked which drugs already in the home could be made lethal, that ChatGPT explained how to deliver them, and that it named local places where she could anonymously buy castor beans, the main source of ricin.
During the July 2025 episode, Gates said he suffered a racing heart, extreme jitteriness and uncontrollable shaking so severe he could not leave his couch for days. A month later, he recorded a video of himself pouring his energy drink into a cup after leaving it open on the kitchen counter while his wife was home, wanting to check whether anything was in it. He noticed nothing, and the video was later handed to police.
Gates told USA Today his wife moved out in August 2025, and that he found the handwritten note when she returned to collect her belongings and left a notebook on the kitchen counter; the paper fell out when he picked it up. The suit says her Amazon history showed searches for syringes, and that liquid droppers, syringes, a scale and gloves were found at the home during a police search. It also accuses ChatGPT of prompting her to delete her chat history so it could not be accessed even if subpoenaed. Gates said he is now separated from his wife and has temporary custody of the children.
