Former lawyer to Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, has admitted to using Google Bard to create citations for non-existent legal cases, which were then presented to a federal court by his legal counsel, David M. Schwartz. The New York Times reported that Cohen acknowledged this in recently unsealed court documents.
After Schwartz submitted these documents, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman had difficulty locating the three cases mentioned. Cohen has now given a sworn statement admitting that he was not aware of the “emerging trends (and related risks) in legal technology.”
Cohen claimed that he did not know Google Bard was a generative text service that could create citations and descriptions that appeared legitimate but were actually fictional. He also blamed his lawyer, stating that he was unaware Schwartz would use these cases “without even confirming that they existed.”
This case is reminiscent of a similar incident in June, where two lawyers and their law firm were fined $5,000 by a federal judge in New York City for presenting a brief with fictitious cases.
Cohen is currently on supervised release after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations and bank and tax fraud in 2018. His representative, Perry, believes that there are numerous cases that support Cohen’s appeal to end his supervised release.
The document in question was part of an effort to terminate Cohen’s supervised release early, stemming from his 2018 charges of tax evasion and campaign finance violations. Cohen has served just over a year of his three-year prison term.
It is important to note that this article was produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and has been reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
