Michael Cohen, the former attorney of Donald Trump, confessed to providing his legal team with artificially generated court citations without verifying their accuracy. Cohen attributed the erroneous citations to Google Bard, describing it as a powerful search engine rather than a relational AI tool. David Schwartz, Cohen’s lawyer, mistakenly included three fictitious instances in a motion seeking to expedite Cohen’s transfer termination. These cases involved fabricated scenarios of cocaine distributors and a tax evader ending supervised release prematurely.
Despite the inaccuracies in the citations, Cohen was unaware of their falsity and bore no responsibility for their verification. His counsel, Schwartz, acknowledged the oversight and attributed it to his client’s conduct. E. Danya Perry, Cohen’s other attorney, corroborated Schwartz’s account, stating that the misrepresented cases were sourced online and included without proper validation.
The incident drew parallels to a previous case where attorneys were fined for using AI technology to fabricate court cases. Schwartz admitted to mistakenly assuming Perry had provided the citations and expressed regret for not independently verifying the information before submission. Cohen, who had been disbarred, relied on his legal team for research and trusted Schwartz to review the citations accurately.
The judge ordered Schwartz to explain the oversight, potentially facing sanctions under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Despite the embarrassing error, Cohen’s legal team emphasized that it was rectified promptly and should not impact Cohen’s case negatively. The court is deliberating on potential sanctions and the termination of Cohen’s supervised release.
