13 Oct 2025 to 26 Nov 2025BrazilUnidentified video tool
The Federal District Civil Police (PCDF) in Brazil say a criminal group ran fake online donation campaigns that used images of elderly people, children and seriously ill people, and used artificial intelligence tools, including deepfakes, to make fake videos with the images of the singer Gusttavo Lima and the Catholic priests Marcelo Rossi and Fábio de Melo. The posts circulated on social media and sent people to pages imitating legitimate charity appeals; the money went to bank accounts the group controlled. Police say one company linked to the group received 215,575 transactions totalling about R$9.8 million between 13 October and 26 November 2025, mostly of R$30 and R$50, and that the number of transactions does not necessarily match the number of victims. On 28 October 2026 the PCDF launched Operação Cáritas with six preventive arrest warrants and search warrants in the Federal District and four states; five suspects had been arrested by the time of most reports (g1 reported six). How the police established that the videos were AI-made is not disclosed, and no response from the people depicted is reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/10/2026
21 Nov 2025United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool
On 25 September 2026 a judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted a defence motion for sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 against a California-barred lawyer admitted for one case (pro hac vice) to represent the plaintiff. The court found that an opposition the lawyer filed on 21 November 2025 was replete with inaccurate citations, including a quotation attributed to a case with a fictitious Westlaw citation, and that later oppositions cited a non-existent case. In response to the court's order to show cause, the lawyer admitted using AI to draft the first opposition and explained a belief that the enterprise-level AI software in use did not hallucinate cases. The court revoked the lawyer's pro hac vice admission and ordered the lawyer's firm to pay the defendants' reasonable fees and costs, capped at $10,000. The order does not name the AI product.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 16/10/2026
31 Jan 2025 to 12 Dec 2025United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool
On 12 December 2025 the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon dismissed with prejudice the claims of plaintiffs in a family dispute over their late mother's estate and family property, as a sanction for what the court called their misuse of generative artificial intelligence, and found their continual violations of the court's Local Rules an additional basis for the dismissal. Three of the plaintiffs' summary-judgment briefs cited fifteen nonexistent cases and fabricated quotations attributed to eight real authorities. The plaintiffs had said the inaccurate citations came from reliance on an automated legal citation tool. The court found that the plaintiffs shared responsibility with their lead lawyer and that one plaintiff, a frequent self-represented litigant, was likely the person who used AI to draft the briefs. It struck the briefs, ordered the lead lawyer to pay $15,500 to the court and awarded the defendants their fees. In March 2026 it set those fees at $94,704.38, ordering the lead lawyer to pay 85% and local counsel 15%. In June 2026 it denied the plaintiffs' motion to reconsider a later ruling for the defendants on a counterclaim.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/10/2026
7 May 2025 to 23 Jul 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
In an incarcerated man's lawsuit against Alabama prison officials in the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, two motions filed in May 2025 for the defence of a former Alabama corrections commissioner contained five citations that did not exist or did not support the propositions cited. Lawyers of the Butler Snow firm, which the state retains to defend its prisons, told the court that a partner had obtained the citations from ChatGPT and had not verified them. On 23 July 2025 Judge Anna M. Manasco publicly reprimanded three of the firm's lawyers, disqualified them from the case and referred the matter to the Alabama State Bar, and ordered them to give the order to clients, opposing counsel and judges in all their pending cases. She declined to suspend them and released the firm and two other lawyers without sanction.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 15/10/2026
25 Feb 2025 to 7 Jul 2025Event location unknownUnidentified AI drafting tool
In the defamation case Coomer v. Lindell in the US District Court for the District of Colorado, a brief that lawyers for Mike Lindell and MyPillow filed on 25 February 2025 contained nearly thirty defective citations, including citations of cases that do not exist. At a conference on 21 April 2025 lead counsel Christopher Kachouroff told Judge Nina Y. Wang that he had drafted the motion and then 'ran it through AI' and had not personally checked the citations. Counsel later said a wrong draft had been filed by mistake; the court was not persuaded. On 7 July 2025 the court found that he and co-counsel Jennifer DeMaster had violated Rule 11 and fined each $3,000 (Kachouroff jointly with his law firm). The court did not sanction Lindell or his companies.
Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/10/2026
23 Dec 2025 to 28 Apr 2026United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool
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.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 09/10/2026
Jun 2025BrazilUnidentified AI tool
State Senator DeAndrea Salvador alleges in a federal complaint filed in August 2025 that an advertisement for Whirlpool's Brazilian brand Consul, made by the agency DM9, used her 2018 TED Talk with altered voice and visuals so that she appeared to say things she did not say, and that this caused reputational harm and emotional distress. Cannes Lions stated on 27 June 2025 that AI-generated and manipulated content was used within the campaign's case film to simulate real-world events and campaign outcomes, and withdrew the Grand Prix. The festival statement does not name the plaintiff. The defendants' response to the complaint is not inspected.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
22 Jan 2025 to 24 Feb 2025Event location unknownMX2.law
A Wyoming federal court fined three lawyers a total of $5,000 and removed the drafting lawyer from Wadsworth v. Walmart after a January 2025 filing cited eight nonexistent cases. The order identifies MX2.law as the drafting tool, records failure to verify its output and credits subsequent remedial steps.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026
Oct 2025United StatesUnidentified video tool
From around October 2025, criminals used AI to clone the image, voice, name, signature and firm logo of Ángel Leal, a long-established immigration attorney in Doral, Florida. They created fake videos, look-alike websites, forged contracts and even fabricated Zoom 'immigration hearings' to persuade immigrants to pay for legal services Leal never provided. Immigrants were defrauded of money, and some believed their cases were progressing when they were not; Leal received one to two defrauded callers a day, changed his phone number, hired an anti-piracy firm that removed thousands of fake profiles and videos, and reported the fraud to local police and federal authorities.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · Added 17/09/2026
19 May 2025 to 17 Apr 2026United StatesUnidentified image and video tool
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged two men in separate cases under the TAKE IT DOWN Act. The sworn complaints allege that each published albums of AI-generated sexual images and videos of identifiable women on an adult-content platform: about 90 women in one case and at least 50 in the other, including acquaintances and recent high-school graduates whose ordinary photographs were turned into sexual videos. The charges are unproven.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 03/06/2026
27 Feb 2025 to 28 Feb 2025United StatesUnidentified image tool
Elijah Heacock, a 16-year-old Caverna High School student in Barren County, Kentucky, died by suicide on 28 February 2025. Investigators searching his phone found AI-generated images of him, some sexually explicit, that an anonymous extortionist had sent with a demand for $3,000 and a threat to share them with his family and friends; his parents say he sent a small partial payment and was told it was 'not enough'. The Barren County Sheriff's Office escalated the case to the FBI, which was still investigating in the inspected reports; no arrest has been reported. His parents have campaigned publicly, Kentucky made sextortion a felony in March 2025, and the family supported the federal Take It Down Act.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · Added 09/03/2026
May 2025 to Nov 2025United StatesChatGPT
A Pittsburgh-area man pleaded guilty in March 2026 to 11 federal counts of cyberstalking, interstate stalking and interstate threats concerning conduct between May and November 2025; prosecutors say he harassed, threatened and stalked 11 women. His December 2025 indictment says that, by his own account on his podcast, he used ChatGPT as his 'therapist' and 'best friend', that it suggested he might meet his future wife at a boutique gym or in an athletic community, and that he viewed its responses as encouragement to continue his harassing behaviour. Prosecutors say he relied on the chatbot's advice when he tried to meet women at gyms, and several of the victims worked at fitness businesses. Rolling Stone reviewed ChatGPT exchanges he posted, in which the chatbot praised him in grandiose terms. The court's judgment of 20 October 2026 sentenced him to 46 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and recommended placement in a facility able to treat his mental health needs; TribLive reports that a defence expert testified he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features and that the judge said the mental health component had a huge impact on the sentence. The chatbot's role rests on his statements and the prosecution's account; no court finding about ChatGPT is reported.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 10 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 13/01/2026