A federal judge has ordered the attorneys for MyPillow founder Mike Lindell to pay fines of $3,000 each after they used artificial intelligence to help prepare legal court documents that contained multiple errors, including citations to cases that don’t exist and misquotations of real cases, USA Today reported. The attorneys, Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster, represented Lindell in a defamation lawsuit. Judge Nina Y Wang of the US District Court in Denver ruled on Monday that they violated court rules by filing a motion on February 25 containing nearly 30 incorrect citations.
How did the court find out they used AI to forge documents?
During a pre-trial conference, the judge questioned attorney Kachouroff about the numerous errors in the filing. He admitted that after drafting an initial outline and motion, they ran it through AI. When asked if he checked the citations afterward, he replied, “Your Honour, I personally did not check it. I am responsible for it not being checked.”
Judge’s ruling on the sanction:
Judge Wang said the $3,000 fine for each lawyer was the least severe sanction adequate to deter and punish them.She also noted that Kachouroff claimed the error-filled motion was a draft that was accidentally filed. But the judge found that even the “final” version he said he meant to submit still contained serious errors.The judge cited the attorneys’ “contradictory statements and lack of corroborating evidence” as reasons for concluding that the filing was not simply an honest mistake.Wang wrote in her ruling that neither Kachouroff nor DeMaster explained how those incorrect citations ended up in their document. It shows extreme carelessness of the attorneys.“Neither Mr Kachouroff nor Ms DeMaster provided the Court any explanation as to how those citations appeared in any draft of the Opposition absent the use of generative artificial intelligence or gross carelessness by counsel,” the ruling read.
What was the case about?
The motion they filed was in response to a legal filing by Eric Coomer, a former director at Dominion Voting Systems. Coomer had sued Lindell, accusing him of defamation for spreading a conspiracy theory that he rigged the elections against US President Donald Trump, USA Today reported as per the court order obtained.A federal jury ruled in Coomer’s favor on June 16, ending the lawsuit he filed in May 2022 against Lindell and his companies, MyPillow and FrankSpeech. Lindell was ordered to pay over $2 million in damages.