Broward man arrested after making nude AI image of teen coworker at country club, sheriff says

A Broward man was arrested after he allegedly made a naked image of a teen girl who he worked with at a country club in Palm Beach County, authorities said.

Thomas Christopher Ball, 49, of Coral Springs was arrested Friday by the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office on charges including generating altered sexual depictions without consent, sending harmful material to a minor and unlawful use of a two-way communication device, records showed.

According to an arrest report, the 17-year-old victim said she worked with Ball at Boca West Country Club, where she was in the fitness department and Ball worked in engineering as a painter.

She said Ball had obtained her Instagram account and she initially allowed him to follow her but he began messaging her and made sexual comments to her, the report said.

During a call, he allegedly described sexual acts he wanted to perform on her and offered to pay her $200 to send him her address so he could perform a sex act on her, the report said.

The teen said she distanced herself from him but he sent her multiple Instagram messages and in March sent her an image that Instagram already flagged for nudity that was a screenshot from one of her TikTok videos that was AI-edited to show her fully nude, the report said.

She said the altered TikTok screenshot was from 2023 when she was 13 or 14, and said Ball told her he had this image and claimed to have more and threatened to expose her if she didn’t resume talking to him at work, the report said.

Ball then sent additional messages telling the teen he loved her, would do anything for her, wanted to “take her to a spa and spoil her,” and would give her $1,000 because of how much he loved her, the report said.

After the teen blocked Ball on Instagram, he contacted her from an unknown phone number while she was in a meeting with management, the report said.

“This is Tommy, did you really block me and call the police on me?” Ball messaged, according to the report.

Later in March, Sunrise Police responded after a friend of Ball called 911 saying Ball came to her house to get a firearm to “shoot the girl who made him lose his job,” the report said.

A Sunrise officer confirmed that Ball was Baker Acted on March 12th because he was “threatening everyone and was drunk,” the report said.

Ball later denied saying he wanted to shoot the girl that got him fired, the report said.

The report said investigators reviewed Zelle records that showed Ball had sent the teen different amounts of money and messages that “indicated grooming of a minor.”

The teen told investigators she couldn’t sleep or eat when the incidents first occurred and had to leave work early one day because she could not function, the report said.

Ball was booked into jail and had his bond set at $75,000, records showed.