Latest news with #DeMaster
Engadget
09-07-2025
- Business
- Engadget
The MyPillow guy's lawyers fined for error-riddled AI-generated court filing
MyPillow CEO and election conspiracy enthusiast Mike Lindell's legal team is in some hot water after submitting an AI-generated court filing, as reported by The New York Times . The legal brief was filled with errors, including misquotes of cited cases, misrepresentations of legal principles and references to cases that don't actually exist. All told, the court identified around 30 major errors in the document. Colorado judge Nina Wang issued fines for the mistake-riddled filing, stating that attorneys Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster of the law firm McSweeney, Cynkar and Kachouroff had violated federal civil procedure rules and that they "were not reasonable in certifying that the claims, defenses and other legal contentions contained in [the AI brief] were warranted by existing law." DeMaster and Kachouroff were fined $6,000 for the transgression. Lindell and MyPillow were not sanctioned for the improper filing, as the court noted that Kachouroff hadn't informed his client that he regularly uses AI tools like Microsoft CoPilot, Google Gemini and even Grok . When questioned, the lawyers admitted they used AI to prepare the brief but claimed they accidentally submitted an earlier draft in which the mistakes had not yet been corrected. Kachouroff said they had a corrected brief at the time of submission, but couldn't provide any evidence to support the claim. The team requested that any potential disciplinary action against them be dismissed but the court declined, finding that the explanation regarding the AI-written brief was not compelling. "Put simply, neither defense counsel's communications nor the 'final' version of the [brief] that they reviewed corroborate the existence of the 'correct' version," Wang wrote. "[N]either Mr. Kachouroff nor Ms. DeMaster provide the Court any explanation as to how those citations appeared in any draft of the [brief] absent the use of generative artificial intelligence or gross carelessness by counsel." The brief was initially presented back in February as the team defended Lindell in a defamation lawsuit brought forth by former Dominion Voting Systems employee Eric Coomer. A jury has since ruled in favor of Coomer . To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. My employee-owned company and I are in jury trial NOW and need your support! Get a FREE USA Revival Multi-Use MyPillow 2.0 with ANY purchase with promo code JURYhttps:// Dreams Bed Sheets LOWEST PRICE EVER!Any size! Any color! ONLY $49.98! My Cross…
The Independent
08-07-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Lawyers for MyPillow CEO fined thousands over error-strewn AI court filing about defamation case
Attorneys for MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell have been fined thousands of dollars over an error-strewn court filing written using artificial intelligence in his defamation case. A federal judge in the U.S. District Court in Denver, Colorado, ordered two lawyers for Lindell to pay $3,000 each, after they used AI to file a document that cited nonexistent cases and misquoted case law, according to the Colorado Sun. Judge Nina Wang ruled Monday that Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster violated court rules when they filed the motion, which included almost 30 inaccurate citations. 'Notwithstanding any suggestion to the contrary, this Court derives no joy from sanctioning attorneys who appear before it,' Wang said in her ruling. She added that the fines were 'the least severe sanction adequate to deter and punish defense counsel in this instance.' Lindell's defamation case came to an end last month when a jury found him liable for defamation after falsely claiming the 2020 presidential election was rigged. The document filed by the defense in the case misquoted court precedents and emphasized legal principles that weren't connected to the cases cited, the ruling stated. Kachouroff admitted during a pretrial hearing that he had used AI to write the motion. While he said that the motion was a draft filed by accident, Wang wrote that the final version the lawyer said was the right one still had 'substantive errors,' including several mistakes that were not in the motion originally filed. Wang said it was the lawyers' 'contradictory statements and the lack of corroborating evidence' that prompted the judge to think the filing of the motion created by generative AI wasn't 'an inadvertent error' and was worthy of a sanction. Wang also addressed the allegation from Kachouroff that the court was trying to 'blindside' him over the mistakes. The judge said the accusation was 'troubling and not well-taken.' '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,' said Wang. The violating motion was filed on February 25 in response to a previous motion by a former director at Dominion Voting Systems, Eric Coomer, who alleged Lindell defamed him by spreading the conspiracy theory that Coomer helped rig the 2020 election. The federal jury in Denver ruled in favor of Coomer on June 16. The initial lawsuit was filed in May 2022 against Lindell, MyPillow, and FrankSpeech, another company owned by Lindell. He was ordered to pay $2.3 million in damages. Coomer had asked for $62.7 million, USA Today noted. Wang asked Kachouroff during a pretrial conference if the motion had been 'generated by generative artificial intelligence?' 'Not initially. Initially, I did an outline for myself, and I drafted a motion, and then we ran it through AI,' said Kachouroff. He told Wang that he had delegated the citation checking to DeMaster, according to the court order. Wang subsequently asked the attorney if he had double-checked the 'citations once it was run through artificial intelligence?' 'Your Honor, I personally did not check it. I am responsible for it not being checked,' said Kachouroff.
