Mike Lindell's Attorneys Fined for Using AI During Defamation Trial

The pillow fight still isn't over.

This morning, July 7, Judge Nina Y. Wang ordered two attorneys representing MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell in his recent defamation trial to pay a $3,000 fine for filing an error-riddled document produced by artificial intelligence.

The filing was made in opposition to a Motion in Limine, which is a document asking the judge to exclude certain evidence or arguments from the jury.

Lindell's trial, brought by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer, concluded in mid-June with Lindell and his media platform FrankSpeech held liable for several instances of defamation — though the judgment was nowhere near what Coomer and his attorneys were asking for.

Wang's order fining Lindell's lead counsel Christopher Kachouroff and co-counsel Jennifer DeMaster comes after the judge had ordered them to explain how a filing with nearly thirty defective citations slipped past them.

According to Wang's order, Kachouroff and DeMaster claimed they'd accidentally filed a previous draft of their opposition document. However, Wang didn't seem to buy it, and didn't like the attitude displayed by Lindell's lawyers, either.

Wang writes that Kachouroff's response has a "puzzlingly defiant tone and tenor," and notes that "Mr. Kachouroff's attempt to shift responsibility for counsel's failure to properly review and file Defendants' Opposition is both troubling and not well-taken."

The judge busts Kachouroff's assertion that "I did not understand what was going on because my co-counsel and I had not relied on AI legal research," pointing out that DeMaster contradicted that statement in an email worrying about the reliability of AI citations.

Kachouroff, who made a minor splash last year after appearing in court via Zoom in boxer shorts, told Judge Wang the AI mistake "represents a clear deviation from what my practice has been," but Wang pointed out that after the court demanded answers about the AI filing, Kachouroff's team "quietly filed" two similar notices in other cases where they'd made filings with citations to cases that simply do not exist.

Wang's order characterizes the $3,000 fines as "the least severe sanction adequate to deter and punish defense counsel in this instance." It sounds like a mere slap on the wrist, but Denver-based First Amendment attorney Steve Zansberg says the shame is its own punishment.

"It's the public ignominy that comes from being identified as having done it," he tells Westword. "It's embarrassing that someone would be so lazy and sloppy in this day and age."