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NOPE
Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

Former federal prosecutor in North Carolina publicly reprimanded after admitting that a brief with fabricated quotations was drafted with AI; he lost his post

In December 2025 an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina filed a response brief for the Department of Defense in a self-represented veteran's lawsuit over health-insurance coverage. The plaintiff identified fabricated quotations and misdescribed case holdings in it. The attorney first attributed the errors to an unfinalized draft filed by mistake. On 2 March 2026 Magistrate Judge Robert T. Numbers II ordered him to show cause why he should not be sanctioned. At the 10 March hearing the attorney, Rudy Renfer, said under oath that he had accidentally overwritten his draft, panicked and used artificial intelligence to draft the brief, and had not verified the cases it cited; he said he had resigned after 17 years in the office, and Courthouse News reported he was terminated the next day. On 28 April 2026 the court issued a public reprimand instead of a fine, writing that his reputation was in tatters and that his job loss already exceeded the usual fines.

AI system
Unidentified AI drafting tool
Occurred
23 Dec 2025 to 28 Apr 2026
Reported
9 March 2026
Event location
United States
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Professional HarmReputational HarmLegal Harm
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Work · Justice
Evidence
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts
6 claims: 1 documented, 5 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Generative artificial intelligence tool, not identified in the inspected accounts, that the attorney said he used to draft a response brief in federal court

What Happened

The brief. The brief, filed in December 2025 for the Department of Defense in a lawsuit by a self-represented retired Air Force colonel over the end of TRICARE for Life coverage of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, misquoted a Fourth Circuit case, attributed quotes to cases that did not contain them and misdescribed several holdings, according to the court's orders as reported by the News & Observer and Courthouse News. The plaintiff identified the errors in his reply. The attorney first told the court he had inadvertently included incorrect citations through the filing of an unfinalized draft.

The AI use. On 2 March 2026 Magistrate Judge Robert T. Numbers II ordered the attorney to show cause why he should not be sanctioned and asked the office's leadership to attend (docket entry). At the 10 March hearing the attorney said under oath that he had accidentally saved over his draft, panicked as the deadline approached and used artificial intelligence to draft the brief, believing he had then edited and fact-checked it; in fact an unfinished draft was filed. The U.S. Attorney told the court he had not previously known AI was used.

The consequences. The attorney said he had resigned after 17 years in the office; Courthouse News reported that he was terminated the day after the hearing. The U.S. Attorney referred him to the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility. On 28 April 2026 the court issued a public reprimand rather than a fine, writing that he intentionally submitted a brief containing false materials, that his professional reputation was in tatters, and that his loss of employment already imposed a financial burden beyond the usual fines for AI-related misdeeds. The AI tool is not identified in any inspected source.

Reported harm

The attorney lost his position in the U.S. Attorney's Office after 17 years, was referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility and received a public judicial reprimand stating that his professional reputation was in tatters, all following the show-cause proceedings over the AI-drafted brief with fabricated quotations (News & Observer; Courthouse News). The self-represented plaintiff had to identify the fabricated authority in the government's filing; no further consequence for him is reported.

Outcome

Resolved

Show-cause order of 2 March 2026 (docket); hearing 10 March 2026 at which the attorney admitted AI use and announced his resignation; public reprimand order signed 28 April 2026 with no fine, citing his job loss and media coverage; the U.S. Attorney referred him to the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility, whose outcome is not reported.

What remains unknown

  • Which AI tool Renfer used, and whether the whole brief or only parts of it were generated; the inspected accounts say only that he used artificial intelligence to draft the brief after losing his own draft.
  • Whether Renfer resigned or was terminated: he told the court he had resigned, and Courthouse News reported that he was terminated the next day.
  • The outcome of the Office of Professional Responsibility referral, and whether the court found similar fabricated quotations in other filings he signed (the News & Observer mentions errors in some of his other briefs without detail).
  • Any consequence for the self-represented plaintiff beyond the work of identifying the errors; the inspected sources describe none.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. Renfer stated under oath at the 10 March 2026 show-cause hearing that he used artificial intelligence to draft the response brief after overwriting his own draft, and that he had not verified the cases it cited (News & Observer, 11 March; Courthouse News, 28 April). The court's 28 April order, as quoted by Courthouse News, treated the fabricated quotations and misdescribed holdings in that brief as the output of generative AI that Renfer failed to check ('An attorney who outsources core research and writing obligations to generative AI assumes the risk that its output will contain fictitious authority'); the News & Observer quotes the same order's statement that 'the submission of fabricated authority will not be tolerated in this Court'. The fabricated authority in the filed brief led to the show-cause order, the hearing, his departure from the office and the public reprimand. The tool is not identified in any inspected source.

6 claims: 1 documented, 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A response brief filed in December 2025 by Assistant U.S. Attorney Rudy Renfer for the Department of Defense in Fivehouse v. U.S. Department of Defense misquoted a Fourth Circuit case, attributed quotes to cases that did not contain them and misdescribed the holdings of several cases, according to Magistrate Judge Robert T. Numbers II's orders as reported by the News & Observer and Courthouse News.

Causal attribution. The court attributed the false quotations to the brief Renfer signed; the fabricated authority is the AI-related artifact in this case.

  • courthousenews.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    This filing misquoted a Fourth Circuit case, falsely attributed quotes to other cases and incorrectly described the court’s decision in several cases that he relied upon to support his argument, Numbers said.
  • yahoo.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Numbers' list of problematic conduct includes fabricated quotes, misrepresentations of previous cases
  • abajournal.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    filed a response with the court including “fabricated quotations and misstatements of case holdings”
Reported The self-represented plaintiff, a retired Air Force colonel, identified the fabricated quotes and inaccurate case descriptions in his reply at the end of December 2025, and Renfer then attributed the errors to the inadvertent filing of an unfinalized draft.

Causal attribution. none asserted

Documented On 2 March 2026 the court ordered Renfer to appear on 10 March 2026 and show cause why he should not be sanctioned under Rule 11(b)(2) and the court's inherent authority, and asked leadership of the U.S. Attorney's Office to attend.

Causal attribution. none asserted

  • courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    the court orders Assistant United States Attorney Rudy E. Renfer to appear and show cause why he should not be sanctioned. The show cause hearing will be held on Tuesday, March 10, 2026
  • abajournal.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    must appear at a show-cause hearing this week
Reported At the 10 March 2026 hearing Renfer said under oath that, after accidentally saving over his draft of the brief, he panicked and used artificial intelligence to draft it, believed he had edited and fact-checked the AI-assisted draft, and in fact sent an unfinished draft to be filed.

Causal attribution. Renfer connected the fabricated authority to his use of AI; the court later wrote that an attorney who outsources research and writing to generative AI assumes the risk of fictitious authority.

  • yahoo.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Renfer then admitted to using AI to draft the brief
  • yahoo.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    he thought he had edited and fact-checked the brief that AI helped draft. In reality, he sent an unfinished draft to his assistant, directing her to file it
  • courthousenews.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    He told the court that he accidentally saved a new file over the original draft of the brief, “panicked,” and used artificial intelligence to catch up.
Reported Renfer left the U.S. Attorney's Office, where he had worked for 17 years: he told the court on 10 March 2026 that he had submitted his resignation, and Courthouse News reported that he was terminated the next day; the U.S. Attorney referred him to the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility.

Causal attribution. The job loss followed the hearing on the AI-drafted brief; the sources do not state the employer's formal grounds.

Reported On 28 April 2026 Magistrate Judge Numbers signed an order publicly reprimanding Renfer, writing that he intentionally submitted a brief containing false materials, that his professional reputation was in tatters, and that his loss of employment was a financial burden beyond the fines courts typically impose, so no fine was imposed.

Causal attribution. The court tied the reprimand to the submission of fabricated authority produced with generative AI.

Sources

5 sources inspected, from 4 underlying accounts. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-09 from the saved body; no translation was involved and no human reviewer read the text. The News & Observer report of 11 March 2026 on the 10 March show-cause hearing, read in its Yahoo News syndication; HTTP 200. Applies to s1.

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-09 from the saved body; no translation was involved and no human reviewer read the text. The News & Observer report of 28 April 2026 on the reprimand order, read in its Yahoo News syndication; HTTP 200. Applies to s2.

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-09 from the saved body; no translation was involved and no human reviewer read the text. Courthouse News Service report of 28 April 2026; the publisher host returned HTTP 403 to the fetcher, so the body was read from an Internet Archive capture of the same URL. Applies to s3.

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-09 from the saved body; no translation was involved and no human reviewer read the text. ABA Journal, 9 March 2026, relaying Bloomberg Law reporting of the 2 March 2026 show-cause order; it does not mention AI; HTTP 200. Applies to s4.

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-09 from the saved body; no translation was involved and no human reviewer read the text. CourtListener RECAP docket for Fivehouse v. U.S. Department of Defense, No. 2:25-cv-00041 (E.D.N.C.), page 2, entries of February to March 2026; HTTP 200. The 28 April 2026 order itself was not available as a free document. Applies to s5.

Event countries: United States. Affected-person countries: United States. Court countries: United States.

The brief was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina and the hearing took place at the federal courthouse in Raleigh (docket entry of 2 March 2026; News & Observer). Renfer worked in that district's U.S. Attorney's Office. No other country is involved.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-09: Published as a core case on two independent reporting chains that both quote the court's orders and both report the attorney's statements at the 10 March 2026 hearing: a federal prosecutor said under oath that he used artificial intelligence to draft a brief that the court found contained fabricated quotations and misdescribed holdings, and the court responded with a show-cause order (documented on the docket), after which he lost his position and received a public reprimand on 28 April 2026. The affected person is a named public actor in a public court record. The AI tool is not identified and the resignation-or-termination question is recorded as unknown.

People described

A career Assistant U.S. Attorney (about 30 years in practice, 17 in the office) who used AI to draft a brief, was ordered to show cause, left the office and was publicly reprimanded. The self-represented plaintiff, a retired Air Force colonel, had to identify the fabricated authority in the government's brief against him.

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One AI user harmed: the attorney who said he used AI to draft the brief and who lost his job and was reprimanded. The plaintiff's burden of identifying the errors is described, but no consequence to him is reported, so he is not counted as harmed.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#legal#fabricated_citations#hallucination#court_sanction#professional_harm#government#united_states#north_carolina

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Former federal prosecutor in North Carolina publicly reprimanded after admitting that a brief with fabricated quotations was drafted with AI; he lost his post. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-north-carolina-federal-prosecutor-ai-drafted-brief-fabricated-quotations-reprimand

BibTeX

@misc{2025_north_carolina_federal_prosecutor_ai_drafted_brief_fabricated_quotations_reprimand,
  title = {Former federal prosecutor in North Carolina publicly reprimanded after admitting that a brief with fabricated quotations was drafted with AI; he lost his post},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-north-carolina-federal-prosecutor-ai-drafted-brief-fabricated-quotations-reprimand}
}

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