Lawyers for MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell fined for AI-generated errors in defamation case brief.

In a recent legal development, the legal team representing MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has been fined $6,000 after submitting a brief plagued with inaccuracies generated by artificial intelligence. The penalties were imposed following an assessment of the lawyers' use of AI which resulted in misquotes and references to nonexistent cases.

Christopher Kachouroff and the firm McSweeney Cynkar & Kachouroff received joint fines amounting to $3,000. Additionally, attorney Jennifer DeMaster was separately penalized with a $3,000 fine. US District Judge Nina Wang stated that this punishment serves as "the least severe sanction adequate to deter and punish defense counsel in this instance." This judgement was delivered yesterday within the District of Colorado.

The attorneys faced these sanctions while defending Lindell against a defamation lawsuit initiated by Eric Coomer, a former executive at Dominion Voting Systems. Coomer's complaint highlighted that Lindell and his companies propagated unfounded conspiracy theories alleging election fraud during the 2020 presidential race.

This disciplinary action follows a jury trial where Coomer secured over $2.3 million in damages. The jury found that Lindell had indeed defamed Coomer, awarding him $440,500 in damages. Additionally, Lindell's media enterprise, Frankspeech, was also deemed culpable and ordered to compensate Coomer with damages amounting to $1,865,500. However, no defamatory conduct was attributed to MyPillow itself by the jury.

The problematic submission from February 25 came as an opposition brief to Coomer’s motion aiming to exclude specific evidence from consideration. Notably, part of Coomer's request was approved before proceedings commenced.

Errors Persist Despite Revised Filing

Kachouroff and DeMaster claimed they mistakenly filed an outdated draft instead of a corrected version. However, Judge Wang's recent order noted that even their "correct" submission contained significant errors such as flawed case descriptions and nearly 30 inaccurate citations.