Former Costa Mesa Police Officer Accused of Using License-Plate Reader to Track Ex-Girlfriend and Her Partners

June 1, 2023

Orange County prosecutors said Costa Mesa, California, police officer Robert Jay Josett used the department's Flock Safety license-plate reader system between 2023 and 2024 to locate a woman he was seeing and vehicles belonging to her romantic partners, including after he was placed on leave. In 2026, Josett pleaded guilty to misdemeanor unauthorized computer access and fraud, repeated phone calls, and contempt of court.

This incident raises serious concerns about the misuse of technology for personal gain, highlighting the need for accountability and responsible AI use in law enforcement. Through contributors—JOIN US—to learn more about Project Cerebellum's efforts to promote trustworthy AI governance and prevent harm.

Alleged deployer

stalkers, robert-jay-josett, law-enforcement, costa-mesa-police-department-(california)

Alleged developer

surveillance-technology-developers, flock-safety, automated-license-plate-reader-(alpr)-developers

Alleged harmed parties

woman-and-romantic-partners-tracked-by-robert-jay-josett, victims-of-stalking, privacy, individuals-whose-license-plate-data-were-accessed-for-non-law-enforcement-purposes

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Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.