Florida's Supreme Court Suspended a Judge for 30 Days Over a Fake Recording of Justices. The Case Is a Warning About Forwarding What You Have Not Checked

The Florida Supreme Court has suspended Broward County Judge Lauren Nichole Peffer for 30 days, fined her $10,000 and ordered a public reprimand over campaign statements that relied on a fabricated recording purporting to capture a conversation among Florida Supreme Court justices and a circuit chief judge, the ABA Journal and Bloomberg Law reported.

The court found that Peffer "undermined public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary by promoting false accusations against the judiciary of the Ninth Judicial Circuit and by implicating sitting Florida Supreme Court justices," according to the ABA Journal.

In 2024, during her campaign, Peffer told a local newspaper that revelations from the Ninth Judicial Circuit, which covers the Orlando area, showed an image crisis in Florida's judiciary, the ABA Journal reported. When the paper pressed her for evidence, she cited a former court employee's book that she had never read and sent the paper a link to the author's website, which hosted the recording, according to Bloomberg Law's account as summarized by the ABA Journal.

The recording was presented as a phone call involving Florida Supreme Court justices and the Ninth Circuit's chief judge. It was fabricated, and the state's Judicial Qualifications Commission concluded it was likely generated with artificial intelligence, according to the reporting. The case is docketed in the Florida Supreme Court as an inquiry concerning a judge, available through the state's appellate case information system.

What the court did and did not find

The discipline turned on Peffer's failure to verify what she promoted, not on a finding that she knew the recording was fake, according to summaries of the order. Judges and judicial candidates in Florida are bound by a code of conduct that requires them to maintain the dignity of judicial office and to avoid statements that undermine public confidence in the courts.

The sanction followed the recommendation of a hearing panel of the Judicial Qualifications Commission, the body that investigates and prosecutes judicial misconduct in Florida. A 30-day suspension, a fine and a public reprimand are significant penalties for a sitting judge but stop short of removal from office.

Law360 and Bloomberg Law reported the order when it was issued, and the ABA Journal carried it on Oct. 12.

Courts across the country have sanctioned lawyers for filing briefs with AI-generated citations to cases that do not exist. The Peffer case is different: it involves a judicial candidate repeating an accusation built on fabricated audio, the kind of material that has become cheap to produce and hard for an ordinary listener to detect.

The standard the court applied is one of diligence. A candidate who forwards a recording without checking it, and uses it to accuse other judges, can be disciplined even without proof that the candidate knew it was false. That principle applies only to judges and judicial candidates, who are governed by judicial canons. Other political candidates are not subject to the same rules, though they can face defamation claims or election-law complaints in some states.

Who created the fabricated recording has not been publicly established in the reporting cited. The commission's conclusion that it was likely AI-generated is a finding of likelihood, not a forensic attribution.

The suspension applies to Peffer's current judicial service. The ABA Journal's account does not indicate that the order affects her eligibility to seek reelection.

For voters heading to the polls Tuesday, the case is a practical reminder from a state's highest court: audio and video that appear to show public officials saying damaging things can be fabricated, and the burden of checking falls on anyone who repeats them, especially those seeking office.