Suspended Toronto lawyer linked to deadly triple shooting caught using AI in appeal

Osgoode Hall is seen in this undated image. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel

A Toronto lawyer linked to a mortgage fraud that was later cited as the motive behind a deadly triple shooting in 2024 was caught using artificial intelligence in an appeal to get his legal licence back.

In a decision released on Dec. 30, the Law Society of Ontario found that “substantial parts" of Shahryar Mazaheri’s motion to vary or remove his suspension “made no sense” and referred to “non-existent and misleading authorities.”

“All the materials that the applicant filed were produced with the assistance of generative artificial intelligence. The tool the applicant used was ‘hallucinating,’” the LSO wrote.

Mazaheri, who did not respond to CTV News Toronto’s request for comment, had his legal licence suspended on a provisional basis on Nov. 12, 2024. The action was taken in connection with his role in an alleged mortgage fraud that drained a couple of their life savings and culminated in a shooting five months earlier.

According to LSO documents, Alisa Pogorelovsky and her late husband, Alan Kats, were interested in investing in mortgages in 2022 and borrowed $1,375,000 to make investments in mortgages on property with the assistance of Samira Yousefi, a real estate broker.

The documents state that Yousefi recommended that Pogorelovsky invest $850,000 in a syndicated first mortgage loan and $400,000 in a private first mortgage loan. However, the money was instead used by Arash Missaghi, who the LSO labelled as a “fraudster,” for companies that he controlled.

Mazaheri was one of two lawyers involved in the transactions, the LSO said, and acted with at least “constructive knowledge of the fraud.”

Pogorelovsky and Kats were suing Yousefi and Missaghi before the June 17 shooting was carried out. In a statement of claim, Missaghi was accused of being a “a prolific fraudster,” involved in a ”sophisticated” mortgage and property scam in Ontario. It also alleged Yousefi was his associate, claiming she knowingly assisted in carrying out fraud against the plaintiffs.

Emergency crews were called to an office building near Don Mills and York Mills roads that afternoon for the sounds of gunshots. Both Missaghi and Yousefi were killed. Kats then took his own life.

Speaking to CTV News Toronto at the time, Pogorelovsky said the scam cost the couple their life savings, and that Kats was severely depressed leading up to the shooting.

Pogorelovsky said she found a note penned by her late husband after the shooting that claimed his death was in the hands of Missaghi and Yousefi.

• READ MORE: Gunman in Toronto shooting was not evil, but ‘broken’ by fraud dispute: wife

While Mazaheri doesn’t dispute that a fraud occurred, he does deny actual or constructive knowledge of the alleged fraud, according to the LSO.

In issuing its suspension of his legal licence, the LSO concluded that there were reasonable grounds for believing that there is a “significant risk of harm to members of the public” for not doing so.

Mazaheri apologized for using AI in his submission, and noted that he relied on the generative AI Grok in researching and drafting his appeal documents as he was unable to retain a lawyer to assist him.

“I did not intend to mislead the Tribunal,” he wrote. “I believed in good faith that the AI tools would produce accurate citations and reasoning. I now see that I failed to verify the output with sufficient care, and I sincerely apologies (sic) to the panel and to Ms. Worley (discipline counsel) for the resulting inaccuracies.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story stated that Mazaheri had lost his appeal to remove the suspension of his legal licence. However, the submissions found to be produced with AI represent only a portion of the motion to appeal the suspension and the remainder has not yet been heard.