AI Risk Wire

Cases › made things up › LR-2026-0478

Federal judge proposes sanctions against Mike Lindell's lawyers over fake citations

Preliminary Why: 1 report: Colorado Politics · subject to change · 1 independent report

Status: no action reported

Severity minor
Reported 1 Apr 2026
Industry legal

No source states: loss or records, developer and model, agent tool, could do, deployer.

Severity minor: test: the effects are contained to one court proceeding and the stated sanctions did not reach Lindell or his companies; no third party is stated to have been touched.

A federal judge in Colorado, Nina Y. Wang, handled post-trial motions in Coomer v. Lindell, a defamation case in which lawyers for Mike Lindell and his company filed briefs with citations likely produced by AI tools. The lawyers had already been sanctioned in July 2025 for earlier citation errors. In a March 25, 2026 order, the judge identified approximately 30 defective citations across filings, and a Tenth Circuit decision cited in one brief did not exist. The judge found no explanation for the attorneys' actions other than generative AI use or gross carelessness, and directed counsel to explain by April 8 why an additional penalty and disciplinary referral should not follow. The sanctions did not reach Lindell or his companies, who were unaware of the lawyers' AI use.

What happened

1 · What it was doingLawyers for Mike Lindell filed court papers that appear to have been drafted with AI tools.
2 · What went wrongThe judge found about 30 defective citations in the filings.
3 · What it reached or didA Tenth Circuit decision cited in a brief on the damages motion did not exist.
4 · How it was caughtThe judge identified the problem while ruling on post-trial motions.

What was done

No source states an action or fix.

Risks

Made-up output relied on
Primary36 incidents

Sorted by rule from the case's fields; not yet read from the sources.

Controls

Not yet read for controls. Controls that mitigate the primary risk:

Application

Grounding and fact checks · Human approval for high-impact actions · Output filtering and redaction · People told they are dealing with AI

Evidence

No source states: when it happened, when it was found, how many records were exposed, the direct loss, a count of the other parties affected, any court case, the cause, what set it off, what was done.

Show the full account: 2 items from the primary sources

What happened, in order

  1. March 25 Judge's order found the fake citations recurred and rejected counsel's one-off explanation.
  2. April 8 Deadline set for counsel to explain why an additional penalty should not be imposed.
Show every field, with its source and grade

What happened

Earliest source we hold
2026-04-01
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
What went wrong
made things up
C one secondary source states it

Impact

Severity
minor
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
Why this severity
test: the effects are contained to one court proceeding and the stated sanctions did not reach Lindell or his companies; no third party is stated to have been touched.
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Context

Industry
legal
C one secondary source states it
Country
United States
C one secondary source states it

Notes on gaps

The article date 2026-04-01 is used as the disclosure date.

LR-2026-0478 · version 1 · published 2026-11-01 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · JSON