In recently unsealed court documents, Michael Cohen, former fixer and lawyer for Donald Trump, admitted to inadvertently providing his attorney with fabricated case citations generated by an artificial intelligence program. Cohen, slated to be a crucial witness in one of Trump’s criminal trials, stated in a sworn declaration that he was unaware the citations produced by Google Bard were fictitious. The questionable citations appeared in a motion filed by Cohen’s attorney, David Schwartz, seeking an early termination of Cohen’s supervised release related to campaign finance violations.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman recently pointed out that three cited court decisions in the motion did not exist and instructed Schwartz to justify why he should not face sanctions for referencing non-existent cases. In Friday’s filings, Cohen, disbarred nearly five years ago, clarified that the citations originated from his personal online research. He expressed surprise that Schwartz included them in the submission without verifying their existence, acknowledging his lack of awareness regarding emerging trends and risks associated with legal technology like Google Bard—a generative text service akin to ChatGPT.
Cohen deeply regretted any complications arising from Schwartz’s filing and highlighted that Google Bard, developed by Alphabet Inc’s Google, operates as a generative AI chatbot. The incident underscores a broader issue faced by courts nationally in addressing the growing use of generative AI programs, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and the need for regulations governing their application in legal proceedings.
Notably, in June, two New York lawyers were sanctioned for submitting a legal brief featuring six fictitious case citations generated by ChatGPT. Cohen, a recent key witness in the civil fraud case brought by New York State Attorney General Letitia James against Trump, is expected to testify in the state’s criminal case, which accuses Trump of falsifying business records to conceal reimbursements to Cohen for a $130,000 payment to silence porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
