In court documents revealed on Friday, Michael Cohen, a former personal attorney to Donald Trump, revealed that he unintentionally provided his lawyers with fabricated legal citations generated by an artificial intelligence program. This admission has the potential to undermine his credibility as he prepares to testify against his former boss.
According to the New York Times, Cohen’s lawyer, David Schwartz, used these false citations in a motion submitted to federal Judge Jesse M. Furman. In the motion, Cohen requested an early termination of the court’s supervision of his case, citing his completion of prison time and compliance with release conditions. It is worth noting that Cohen had previously pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations.
Cohen stated that he had no idea that Google Bard was a “generative text service that, like ChatGPT, could show citations and descriptions that looked real but actually were not.” Additionally, he stated that he was unaware that his attorney would present fabricated citations to the court without verifying their authenticity.
The utilization of fabricated citations by Cohen, as reported by the Times, has the potential to weaken the criminal lawsuit led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against Trump, wherein Cohen is anticipated to play a pivotal role as the main witness.
“The former president’s lawyers have long attacked Mr. Cohen as a serial fabulist; now, they say they have a brand-new example,” the Times reported.
The trial for the case against Trump is set to take place on March 25th. Bragg has accused Trump of falsifying business records, violating a state law, and has brought forth 34 charges against him. Additionally, Bragg argues that Trump intentionally falsified these records with the intent to defraud and commit another crime, specifically a federal campaign violation related to the payment made to former porn actress Stormy Daniels. This approach taken by Bragg is seen as unique and questionable by former prosecutors and legal experts.
In response to these allegations, Trump’s lawyer, Susan R. Necheles, dismisses the claims as “typical Michael Cohen.”
“The D.A.’s office should not be basing a case on him,” Necheles said, according to the Times. “He’s an admitted perjurer and has pled guilty to multiple felonies and this is just an additional indication of his lack of character and ongoing criminality.”
The nonexistent cases cited by Cohen — “United States v. Figueroa-Flores, United States v. Ortiz and United States v. Amato” reportedly came with corresponding summaries and notations that they had been affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
But, the Times noted, “It has become clear that they were hallucinations created by the chatbot, taking bits and pieces of actual cases and combining them with robotic imagination.”
