The attorney representing former Trump fixer-turned-enemy Michael Cohen reportedly cited non-existent court rulings in a legal filing requesting that Cohen’s supervised release end early, the Associated Press reported.
In an order issued on December 12, US District Judge Jesse Furman instructed attorney David Schwartz to provide copies of three rulings he cited in the motion. If Schwartz did not produce the copies by December 19, the judge said he would have to explain in writing why the judge should not sanction him.
Furman wrote in his instructions that from what he could tell, none of the cases cited in the motion existed. He said if Schwartz could not produce copies of the cases, he would have to explain how it came about that he cited cases “that do not exist” and if Schwartz’s client Michael Cohen played any role in “drafting or reviewing the motion before it was filed.”
Cohen’s new lawyer E. Danya Perry said she was unable to verify the case law cited in Schwartz’s November motion and brought it to the attention of Judge Furman.
Cohen was sentenced in 2018 after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges, tax evasion, and lying in congressional testimony. He served just over 13 months in prison followed by 18 months in home confinement before being given supervised release for three years.
Cohen has served about two years of his supervised release. On November 29, Schwartz filed a motion requesting that the supervised release end early, citing Cohen’s testimony in the civil fraud lawsuit in New York.
In discussing possible sanctions against Schwartz, Judge Furman cited an unrelated case from earlier this year in Manhattan federal court in which two lawyers cited cases that did not exist. The lawyers were fined $5,000 and admitted the fake cases were created by the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.
