Attorneys representing My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell have been ordered to pay significant fines by a U.S. District Court judge after court documents they submitted were found to contain numerous errors, including fabricated case citations, stemming from the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Judge Nina Y. Wang of the U.S. District Court in Denver imposed a fine of $3,000 on each of Lindell’s lawyers. The judicial order followed the discovery of 30 distinct errors within the filings, ranging from incorrect quotations of existing cases to the baffling inclusion of citations to entirely non-existent legal precedents.
The AI Admission in Court
The revelation of AI use came directly from the bench. During proceedings, Judge Wang directly questioned one of Lindell’s attorneys, Christopher Kachouroff, asking if the motion had been “generated by generative artificial intelligence?”
Kachouroff’s response confirmed the AI’s involvement: “Not initially. Initially, I did an outline for myself, and I drafted a motion, and then we ran it through AI.” When pressed by Judge Wang about whether he had cross-referenced the documents for accuracy given the errors, Kachouroff candidly admitted he had not double-checked them.
Context: Lindell’s Defamation Judgment
This penalty for AI-generated errors comes on the heels of a recent, substantial legal setback for Mike Lindell himself. Last month, a jury found the My Pillow CEO guilty of defaming Eric Coomer, a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems, a prominent voting equipment company.
Coomer had initiated the lawsuit after Lindell, via his online media platform Frankspeech, publicly labeled him a “traitor” and falsely accused him of orchestrating the theft of the 2020 election. Coomer, who served as the security and product strategy director at Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, sought substantial damages.
The jury ultimately mandated that Lindell and his media company, Frankspeech, pay Coomer $2.3 million in damages. This figure, while significant, was notably less than the $62.7 million Coomer had originally sought in his defamation claim.
The fines imposed on Lindell’s legal team serve as a stark reminder of the critical need for robust human oversight when integrating emerging technologies like generative AI into legal practice, especially in high-stakes litigation.