Michael Cohen Admits to Submitting Fictitious AI-Generated Citations to Court in Motion to End Supervision Early

New York (AP) – Michael Cohen, former fixer for Donald Trump, admitted in a court filing unsealed Friday that he had accidentally submitted fictitious artificial intelligence-generated citations to a court. The citations were part of a motion submitted on Cohen’s behalf by his lawyer in an attempt to end his court supervision early.

Cohen was sentenced in 2018 to a three-year prison term followed by three years of post-release supervision for crimes including making secret payments to women who had alleged affairs with Trump, lying to Congress, and tax evasion. He was released from prison in May 2020.

In the court filing, Cohen said he had obtained the AI-generated citations online and had passed them along to his lawyer without realizing they were not real. The citations were discovered after a judge asked a lawyer to explain how court rulings that do not exist were cited in the motion.

Cohen’s lawyer, Roger Adler, said in a statement that the citations were “inadvertently included” in the motion and that he “did not realize they were not real.” He added that he “regrets the error” and that the motion was “otherwise properly prepared and submitted.”

The judge has not yet ruled on the motion. It is unclear how the revelation of the fictitious citations will affect the outcome of the motion.