NCOSE Lawyers Got Caught Citing Fake Cases. Their Corrected Brief Had More Fake Cases.

from the maybe-don’t-trust-them? dept

The folks at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) have spent decades demonizing technology (and speech) they don’t understand, so it seems particularly ironic that they’re now getting benchslapped for allowing AI hallucinated citations in legal filings.

First, some background: NCOSE has gone through a few different branding phases, but for a long while were known as “Morality in Media,” an extraordinarily prudish and busybodyish entity that went around scolding retailers for offering magazines that showed models on the cover for being too sexy.

When they renamed themselves to NCOSE and started focusing on the internet (including the laughably false claim that any porn is a health issue and, now, that it’s a national security issue), they jumped on the anti-encryption and anti-Section 230 bandwagons, and politicians (including many Democratic ones who should have known better) quickly embraced the group under the false pretense that they actually were interested in ending sexual exploitation, rather than locking down the internet, and blocking any speech that acknowledges LGBTQ+ people exist.

Suffice it to say, the group is a far right, anti-sex, anti-speech, and anti-internet group, and it’s ridiculous that any politician supports them.

And now we can add to the list that their lawyers apparently can’t make it through a filing without fabricating citations — and then doubling down when caught. This came out in a convoluted case, in which NCOSE lawyers sued some Nevada brothels for supposedly exploiting women who chose to work there. It is possible that something bad happened in those places, but NCOSE apparently did themselves no favors by hiring a local lawyer whose AI-assisted work they were supposed to review — and then didn’t. Even worse, when the other side called out the hallucinated citations, NCOSE’s lawyers tried to attack the defendant and play down the hallucinations… in a filing with more hallucinated citations:

Let’s have Judge Andrew Gordon explain the basics:

Her briefs contained AI hallucinations. Despite Bistro pointing out these errors in its opposition, JD2 did not withdraw or correct her motion and her reply brief also contained misquotes. Bistro then filed a notice identifying the reply’s misquotes. About a month later, JD2 filed multiple errata, an amended motion for reconsideration, and an amended reply that purported to correct these errors, but the amended motion still contained AI hallucinations.

The order also suggests that NCOSE and the local lawyer they hired engaged in an awful lot of finger pointing and blame passing rather than, you know, doing actual lawyering. And then, once they were on notice of falsified filings, they… didn’t fix them. Indeed, NCOSE’s lawyers continued to rely on a hallucinated citation.

And thus, the defendants win their motion for sanctions, striking the falsified filings from the document, and denying the original request to reconsider an earlier ruling dismissing NCOSE’s exaggerated claims. The court notes that while it was the local lawyer who used the AI (and eventually admitted to doing so), the real problem is with NCOSE’s lawyers:

I have read Guinasso’s affidavit about the serious life events he was experiencing during the time frame of these violations, and I am sorry for his losses and the strain that must have put him under. But, as he acknowledges, that does not excuse the over-reliance on artificial intelligence without a human cite-checking the papers. I credit him for accepting responsibility and implementing procedures that hopefully preclude repeating this incident.

Although JD2’s motion and Guinasso’s declaration request that any sanctions fall solely on Guinasso, that is not appropriate here. There were six NCOSE attorneys on this case at the time. Additionally, the evidence before me shows that the NCOSE attorneys had some responsibility for cite checking. Although the errors may have begun with Guinasso, both Guinasso and Hirsch state that the NCOSE attorneys were supposed to double-check his citations. Moreover, Bistro’s opposition to the original motion for reconsideration should have put all attorneys on notice that there was an AI hallucination problem. Bistro devoted considerable space in its opposition to pointing out those errors, including that cases did not stand for the proposition cited, that quotations did not exist as cited, and that specific cited sources did not exist altogether. Rather than apologize and promptly fix the motion, JD2’s counsel minimized Bistro’s concerns and, in what is a bit of a pattern, criticized Bistro for attacking citation errors, calling Bistro’s concerns quibbling and distraction devices.

The NCOSE attorneys admit they were asked to review the original draft reply brief. That reply brief mentioned that Bistro had challenged citations in the motion for reconsideration. Despite being asked to review the reply brief, Hirsch stated at the hearing that the NCOSE attorneys had not read Bistro’s opposition brief, which is itself disturbing. Reading the draft reply brief should have tipped the NCOSE attorneys off to a potential problem. So laying all the blame on Guinasso’s shoulders for the initial errors is not warranted.

Moreover, Hirsch admits that she drafted the amended filings. The amended motion for reconsideration still contains two critical citation errors. It cites the Marcum case for a proposition that Marcum does not even address, much less stand for. And it cites the Cross case, which does not exist. These are not minor errors. JD2’s reconsideration motion rests in significant part on the argument that, under Nevada law, a contract procured through a threat is void, not voidable, and she cites Marcum and Cross for that proposition. Those errors remain uncorrected to this day, and the briefs with the offending AI hallucinations still have not been withdrawn. At the hearing, Hirsch stated that “even without those cases in there and without the premises that we said that they stood for, the substance of the motion is — stands and is still arguable.” But “[i]t is irrelevant that other cases may stand for the propositions asserted” because if other cases support the propositions, then it is the lawyer’s “responsibility to cite them.” Malkeet Lnu, 2026 WL 1587554, at *8. Moreover, later in the hearing, JD2’s new local counsel candidly admitted that he could locate no existing Nevada law that would support the reconsideration motions’ argument that duress makes a contract void rather than voidable. Thus, the failure to withdraw or correct these citations in the amended motion is significant.

So in the end, the judge orders the plaintiffs lawyers at NCOSE and the local counsel, Guinasso, to pay the defendant’s legal fees.

I also impose monetary sanctions in the form of Bistro’s reasonable attorney’s fees jointly and severally against the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and Guinasso Law, Ltd. Reasonable attorney’s fees are an appropriate sanction under both my inherent power and 28 U.S.C. § 1927. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Haeger, 581 U.S. 101, 107 (2017) (inherent power); 28 U.S.C. § 1927 (“Any attorney . . . who so multiplies the proceedings in any case unreasonably and vexatiously may be required by the court to satisfy personally the excess costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees reasonably incurred because of such conduct.”). “Citing even a single fake case can be sanctionable because no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations—whether provided by generative AI or any other source—that a lawyer has not personally read and verified.” Whiting, 170 F.4th at 461 (simplified)). Citing fake legal authority is not harmless. It wastes the other parties’ and the court’s resources trying to track down the nonexistent cases. Id. at 467 (“Citing fake cases unnecessarily burdens the court and the taxpayers, so courts can and should fine the offending lawyers to reimburse the court for its time.” (simplified)). And the burden it imposes on the opposing party and the court is lopsided because “[w]hile one party can create a fake legal brief at the click of a button, the opposing party and court must parse through the case names, citations, and points of law to determine which parts, if any, are true. As AI continues to proliferate, this creation-response imbalance places significant strain on the judicial system.” Ferris v. Amazon.com Servs., LLC, 778 F. Supp. 3d 879, 880-81 (N.D. Miss. 2025). To rectify that imbalance, an award of fees is warranted in this case.

For what it’s worth the NCOSE lawyers apparently also had tried to argue that the defendants legal fees were its own fault for not filing for sanctions earlier, and the court is (rightly) having none of it:

I reject JD2’s argument that Bistro’s fees are its own fault for not filing a Rule 11 motion. Bistro did not originally seek sanctions and instead was content to point out the errors in its response brief and let the original motion for reconsideration play out on the papers. It was JD2’s counsel who did not read the opposition brief that pointed out the errors, did not withdraw the briefs, decided to instead file the errata and amended briefs, did so without leave of court, left AI hallucinations in the new filings, and materially altered her briefs through a procedural mechanism that did not give Bistro an opportunity to respond to these changes. Despite acknowledging that the amended reconsideration motion still has AI hallucinations, JD2’s counsel has not withdrawn that document or moved to correct it to this day.

The next time NCOSE shows up at a Senate hearing — and they will, because nothing stops a well-funded moral panic lobby from getting a Senate invite — someone should slide this ruling across the dais. Senator Richard Blumenthal has treated NCOSE as a credible voice at KOSA hearings for years, despite ample evidence that the group cares far more about restricting speech than protecting anyone from exploitation. Now there’s a federal judge’s order explaining, in patient detail, that NCOSE’s lawyers fabricated citations, doubled down when caught, and filed corrected briefs that still contained fabrications. The fake cases are still in the record. The organization still hasn’t withdrawn them.

And yet this is who Blumenthal thinks you should trust in helping set internet policy for hundreds of millions of Americans.

Filed Under: ai, ai hallucinations, bad lawyering

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