On 7/7, federal magistrate judge Nina Wang in Denver, Colorado, fined lawyers Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster $3,000 each for violating court rules by submitting a petition containing nearly 30 inaccurate citations.

Judge Wang described the penalty as "the least severe sanction adequate to deter" such conduct.

Kachouroff and DeMaster represented Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, in a defamation case. On 16/6, a jury found Lindell liable for falsely claiming the 2020 presidential election was rigged, ordering him to pay $2.3 million in damages.

The court's decision noted that the defense's document, filed on 25/2, misquoted case law and presented legal principles irrelevant to the cited cases.

During a pre-trial conference, Judge Wang questioned Kachouroff about whether the petition was "created by artificial intelligence". Kachouroff admitted using AI after initially drafting the document himself, and delegated the task of verifying citations to DeMaster, but did not review them again personally.

In the hearing, Kachouroff claimed the AI-generated version was a draft accidentally submitted. However, Judge Wang pointed out that the supposedly correct final version still contained "fundamental errors," some not present in the initial filing.

Judge Wang attributed the penalties to the lawyers’ "conflicting statements and lack of credible evidence," concluding that the submission of the AI-generated document was not an "inadvertent mistake."

Tue Anh (Independent)