An assistant US attorney in North Carolina filed a response with the court that included “fabricated quotations and misstatements of case holdings” and then made “false or misleading statements” of how they got included, a magistrate judge said.
“Because of the seriousness of these issues,” senior leaders from the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina must appear at a show cause hearing next week for why the federal prosecutor responsible shouldn’t be sanctioned and why the entire office shouldn’t be held jointly responsible, US Magistrate Judge Robert Numbers said in a March 2 order.
The US attorney’s office is representing the Defense Department in a lawsuit by a North Carolina pro se litigant challenging a policy limiting availability of GLP-1 weight loss medications for TRICARE for Life participants.
The plaintiff asserted that a response brief signed by assistant US attorney Rudy Renfer included fabricated quotes and misstated the holdings of several cases. In a reply, Renfer said he “inadvertently included incorrect citations to case law from this circuit” and attributed the errors to the “inadvertent filing of an unfinalized draft document,” Numbers said in his order.
“Having reviewed the filings in this matter and other submissions by Renfer, the court has serious concerns about the accuracy of certain quotations and representations in Renfer’s filings and the explanation offered for their inclusion,” Numbers said.
Although it’s not yet clear what caused the error, it comes as judges and opposing counsel have accused attorneys of AI-generated fabrications in filings, leading to monetary penalties in some instances. A spokesperson for the Raleigh-based US attorney’s office didn’t respond to a question about whether Renfer was using an AI tool to help draft his briefs.
Renfer, who was admitted to practice in North Carolina in 1996, has worked at the US attorney’s office since 2009 after stints as a local prosecutor, assistant attorney general, and solo practitioner, according to his LinkedIn profile and the state bar member directory.
Judge Numbers lists fabricated quotes and misstatements of holdings citing multiple circuit court opinions in Renfer’s filing, as well as two fabricated quotes from the Code of Federal Regulations.
The pro se plaintiff who caught the errors, Derence Fivehouse, is a retired Air Force colonel and an attorney himself. He’s a former staff judge advocate who also served as chief of the legal counsel division at the Air Force Base Conversion Agency in the George W. Bush administration
In an email to Bloomberg Law Friday night, Fivehouse credited the court for identifying “the most significant issues” after he flagged “a few case misrepresentations.”
“I will not speculate publicly about the cause while the matter is pending before the court,” Fivehouse said. “I do believe, however, that the provenance of the fabricated language is a material issue—specifically, whether the language originated with the signing attorney or was incorporated from another source. That question deserves a clear answer.”
In a Military Times column explaining the lawsuit last year, Fivehouse wrote, “At 69 years old, after decades in uniform and a promise of lifetime health care, I never thought I would have to fight the Pentagon for medications my doctor deems essential.”
In his order, Numbers notes that under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a law firm “must be held jointly responsible for violations committed by its attorneys absent exceptional circumstances” and ordered a representative from the office to appear and show cause for why the office isn’t jointly responsible.
The potential sanctions that could result range from a fine to contempt proceedings or suspension from practicing before the court, Numbers said.
The magistrate judge also asked US Attorney W. Ellis Boyle to review the matter before Tuesday’s hearing and take appropriate corrective action. Boyle, the son of a sitting trial court judge in Eastern North Carolina, began serving as interim chief prosecutor in the district last August. President Donald Trump’s nomination of Boyle for the post is pending before the Senate.
The case is Fivehouse v. Defense Dept., E.D.N.C., No. 2:25-cv-00041.
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