Lawyers defending outspoken election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and his companies MyPillow and FrankSpeech in a federal defamation lawsuit say they are owed millions of dollars in legal fees and haven’t been for months. Payment received.
Attorneys for Minneapolis-based Parker Daniels Kibort LLC and Denver-based Reisch Law Firm LLC asked the judge overseeing the lawsuit, filed by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Cuomo, to remove them from the case. (Eric Coomer) Filed.
Parker Daniel Skibot said Lindell and his company notified the company this week that they “are unable to catch up or pay the substantial amount owed, nor to pay anything close to the estimated costs of continuing to defend against future litigation, including legal fees or litigation.” cost.”
“Forcing PDK to continue to fund Defendants’ defense in the matters described above would expose PDK to serious financial risks and could threaten the company’s survival,” the motion states.
FrankSpeech is a conservative website created by Lindell.
Cuomo, Dominion’s former director of product strategy and security, filed a 67-page lawsuit in April 2022 against Lindell, MyPillow and FrankSpeech. The lawsuit claims Lindell falsely accused Cuomo of being a “traitor against America” as part of the allegation that he rigged the 2020 presidential election in Biden’s favor.
Lindell, through his attorney, denied Cuomo’s claims.
Last month, Cuomo’s attorneys accused Lindell in a motion of being “vulgar, threatening, loud (and) disrespectful” during three depositions in the lawsuit. As part of the motion, Cuomo’s attorneys provided deposition transcripts and video clips in which Lindell called one of Cuomo’s attorneys an “ambulance-chasing asshole.” Lindell also called Cuomo a “scumbag” and blasted U.S. District Judge Nina Wang, who is overseeing the case.
Cuomo’s lawyers asked Wang to order Lindell to testify in federal court in Colorado. She has yet to rule on the request.
Attorneys for Parker Daniels Kibort said they also were not paid in two other defamation cases against Lindell, one brought by Denver-based Dominion and the other by Smartmatic, another electronic voting systems company.
Dominion and Smartmatic allege Lindell and MyPillow lost more than $1 billion in each case.
Lindell and his company made timely payments to the company by the end of 2022, according to lawyers.
“In 2023, defendant’s payments began to slow,” the motion states. “In addition, around this time, total litigation fees and litigation costs increased dramatically.”
Reisch Law Firm said Lindell and his firm also notified them this week that they “will no longer pay any attorney fees in connection with this matter.” According to the company, the defendants had not paid their bills in months.
Cuomo is suing numerous other election conspiracy theorists, including former President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign; Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell; Joe Oltmann , a Colorado conservative podcast.
On August 30, U.S. News and Chanel Rion, a reporter for the channel, reached a settlement with Cuomo in Denver District Court.
