Latest news with #Charlotin
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Queens hit-and-run driver arrested for murder for dragging victim 3 blocks
More than a year after a 66-year-old man was fatally run over and dragged for nearly three blocks in Queens, the hit-and-run driver who bystanders begged to stop turned himself in to face murder charges Tuesday, officials said. Warren Rollins surrendered at the 105th Precinct stationhouse in Queens Village for the Dec. 10, 2023, crash that killed Gary Charlotin. Rollins, 49, ignored pleas from horrified onlookers begging him to stop, according to a law enforcement source. Charlotin was crossing a rain-swept stretch of Hempstead Ave. near 221st St. about 8 p.m. when the driver of a 2004 Toyota Camry heading west rammed into him, knocking him into the east-bound lane. A moment later, Rollins, driving a light-colored SUV, allegedly ran over Charlotin and came to a stop, idling for about two minutes, according to a police source. As bystanders screamed at him to stop, Charlotin then took off, dragging the victim 1,588 feet before Charlotin finally came dislodged as the SUV reached an underpass for the Cross Island Parkway, the source said. Dozens of mourners attended a funeral for Charlotin in February 2024. Some wailed in pain during the live-streamed ceremony. He lived in North Baldwin, L.I., according to cops. A month after the fatal crash, cops arrested 38-year-old Osman Zavala-Varela, of Hempstead, L.I., who they identified as the driver of the Camry. Cops charged Zavala-Varela with leaving the scene of a fatal accident and tampering with physical evidence. He was released without bail after being arraigned and is due back in Queens Criminal Court July 10. Members of the NYPD's Collision Investigation Squad spent a year tracking down Rollins, finally identifying him as the man driving the light-colored SUV. A Queens grand jury indicted Rollins on charges of depraved indifference murder, manslaughter, leaving the scene of a fatal accident and criminally negligent homicide before a judge issued a warrant for his arrest. He lives in Elmont, L.I., according to cops. Rollins was arrested for drunk driving in 2014 and 2015, police sources said, but the outcome of those cases weren't immediately clear. Rollins' arraignment on the murder charges was pending in Queens Criminal Court Tuesday.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Yahoo
AI hallucinations in court documents are a growing problem, and data shows lawyers are responsible for many of the errors
Since May 1, judges have called out at least 23 examples of AI hallucinations in court records. Legal researcher Damien Charlotin's data shows fake citations have grown more common since 2023. Most cases are from the US, and increasingly, the mistakes are made by lawyers, not laypeople. Judges are catching fake legal citations more frequently, and it's increasingly the fault of lawyers over-relying on AI, new data shows. Damien Charlotin, a legal data analyst and consultant, created a public database of 120 cases in which courts found that AI hallucinated quotes, created fake cases, or cited other apparent legal authorities that didn't exist. Other cases in which AI hallucinates might not draw a judge's attention, so that number is a floor, not a ceiling. While most mistakes were made by people struggling to represent themselves in court, data shows that lawyers and other professionals working with them, like paralegals, are increasingly at fault. In 2023, seven out of 10 cases in which hallucinations were caught were made by so-called pro se litigants, and three were the fault of lawyers; last month, legal professionals were found to be at fault in at least 13 of 23 cases where AI errors were found. "Cases of lawyers or litigants that have mistakenly cited hallucinated cases has now become a rather common trope," Charlotin wrote on his website. The database includes 10 rulings from 2023, 37 from 2024, and 73 from the first five months of 2025, most of them from the US. Other countries where judges have caught AI mistakes include the UK, South Africa, Israel, Australia, and Spain. Courts around the world have also gotten comfortable punishing AI misuse with monetary fines, imposing sanctions of $10,000 or more in five cases, four of them this year. In many cases, the offending individuals don't have the resources or know-how for sophisticated legal research, which often requires analyzing many cases citing the same laws to see how they have been interpreted in the past. One South African court said an "elderly" lawyer involved in the use of fake AI citations seemed "technologically challenged." In recent months, attorneys in high-profile cases working with top US law firms have been caught using AI. Lawyers at the firms K&L Gates and Ellis George recently admitted that they relied partly on made-up cases because of a miscommunication among lawyers working on the case and a failure to check their work, resulting in a sanction of about $31,000. In many of the cases in Charlotin's database, the specific AI website or software used wasn't mentioned. In some cases, judges concluded that AI had been used despite denials by the parties involved. However, in cases where a specific tool was mentioned, ChatGPT is mentioned by name in Charlotin's data more than any other. Charlotin didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
27-05-2025
- Business Insider
AI hallucinations in court documents are a growing problem, and data shows lawyers are responsible for many of the errors
Judges are catching fake legal citations more frequently, and it's increasingly the fault of lawyers over-relying on AI, new data shows. Damien Charlotin, a legal data analyst and consultant, created a public database of 120 cases in which courts found that AI hallucinated quotes, created fake cases, or cited other apparent legal authorities that didn't exist. Other cases in which AI hallucinates might not draw a judge's attention, so that number is a floor, not a ceiling. While most mistakes were made by people struggling to represent themselves in court, data shows that lawyers and other professionals working with them, like paralegals, are increasingly at fault. In 2023, seven out of 10 cases in which hallucinations were caught were made by so-called pro se litigants, and three were the fault of lawyers; last month, legal professionals were found to be at fault in at least 13 of 23 cases where AI errors were found. "Cases of lawyers or litigants that have mistakenly cited hallucinated cases has now become a rather common trope," Charlotin wrote on his website. The database includes 10 rulings from 2023, 37 from 2024, and 73 from the first five months of 2025, most of them from the US. Other countries where judges have caught AI mistakes include the UK, South Africa, Israel, Australia, and Spain. Courts around the world have also gotten comfortable punishing AI misuse with monetary fines, imposing sanctions of $10,000 or more in five cases, four of them this year. In many cases, the offending individuals don't have the resources or know-how for sophisticated legal research, which often requires analyzing many cases citing the same laws to see how they have been interpreted in the past. One South African court said an "elderly" lawyer involved in the use of fake AI citations seemed "technologically challenged." In recent months, attorneys in high-profile cases working with top US law firms have been caught using AI. Lawyers at the firms K&L Gates and Ellis George recently admitted that they relied partly on made-up cases because of a miscommunication among lawyers working on the case and a failure to check their work, resulting in a sanction of about $31,000. In many of the cases in Charlotin's database, the specific AI website or software used wasn't mentioned. In some cases, judges concluded that AI had been used despite denials by the parties involved. However, in cases where a specific tool was mentioned, ChatGPT is mentioned by name in Charlotin's data more than any other.
