Jury finds MyPillow CEO defamed man with tale of 2020 election fraud

DENVER (CN) — An eight-person jury on Monday found MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell defamed a former Dominion Voting Systems director dragged into 2020 election fraud narratives, issuing a $2.3 million judgment.

“We are thrilled with the verdict,” said attorney Charlie Cain, who represents Eric Coomer. “He’ll still be looking over his shoulder, but this shows individuals can find vindication through the courthouse.”

Although the judgment fell short of the $60 million Coomer had requested, Cain told reporters he hoped the verdict sent encouragement to county clerks and election workers pulled into the false narrative that the 2020 election had been stolen.

The rumor that Eric Coomer personally rigged the 2020 election did not start with Lindell, but according to Coomer’s 2022 civil lawsuit, the entrepreneur and his website Frank Speech were “among the most prolific vectors of baseless conspiracy theories claiming election fraud in the 2020 election."

After Trump lost the 2020 election, Lindell invested millions of dollars into investigating election fraud, efforts that included collecting individual county voter rolls, hiring cyber security analysts and preaching his since-debunked claims of hacking across Fox and Newsmax programs.

In 2021, Lindell’s mission brought him to the Conservative Daily Podcast, hosted by Joe Oltmann, who recalled his own election conspiracy theory. In the months leading up to the election, Oltmann claimed he infiltrated an “antifa” activist call, on which he swore he heard a man called “Eric from Dominion” say he “made f-ing sure” that Trump wouldn’t win the election.

An Internet search of “Eric,” “Dominion” and “Denver, Colorado” led Oltmann to Eric Coomer, a director of product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems in Denver.

Although Coomer did not in fact rig the 2020 election — and says he was not on the purported antifa call — the story Oltmann sparked spread like wildfire as it was picked up by YouTube hosts, published on the Gateway Pundit, reported on One America News Network and shared on social media by Trump’s son Eric.

In December 2020, Coomer sued the podcaster, the Donald Trump campaign and others who retold the story. Coomer filed subsequent lawsuits against a conservative talk radio host and other content producers in 2021, but the big lie kept spreading and even drove him out of a job.

Emphatically, Lindell tried to convince the jury that when he told Coomer to turn himself in, he wasn’t accusing Coomer of stealing the 2020 election from Trump, but that he saw Coomer’s defamation lawsuits as efforts from a “blocker” to silence his crusade against electronic voting machines.

The jury nevertheless found two occasions in which Lindell’s speech against Coomer rose to the level of defamation: on May 9, 2021, following Coomer’s settlement with Newsmax — when Lindell learned he could no longer use the platform to speak against voting machines — and on April 6, 2022, when he said Coomer should be put behind bars after being served with Coomer’s lawsuit on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol.

The jury did not find Lindell intentionally inflicted emotion distress on Coomer, but his platform Frank Speech did, resulting in additional punitive damages.

Despite being found liable for defamation on two out of 10 statements presented, Lindell celebrated his win outside the court: first the clearing of claims against his company MyPillow, and second the defense of free speech.

“The first thing you need to hear is MyPillow has been vindicated,” Lindell said before taking a call from former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who remains a defendant on Coomer’s first 2020 defamation lawsuit.

“MyPillow should have never been sued. The media should stop backing companies that rhyme with Dominion and Smartmatic,” Lindell said.

Although he admitted he does not have the money to pay the judgment, Lindell said he intends to appeal, arguing Coomer introduced little evidence to support damages. During deliberation, the jury asked whether they could decline to calculate damages if they felt they lacked the evidence and experience to do so, but were told by the parties to do so laid out in the jury instructions.

Lindell vowed to keep speaking out against voting machines until American elections return to hand-counted paper ballots, but he waivered on whether he would continue to call out Coomer specifically.

“I’m going to keep attacking Dominion, but Coomer was just a way for them to get this to trial,” Lindell said. “We’ll let bygones be bygones, I didn’t even know who he was until he sued me.”

On the witness stand, Lindell detailed his belief in China rigging U.S. elections and voting machine vulnerabilities being exploited. Lindell stood by accusing Coomer of being criminal, along with his attorneys, and blaming them for the downfall of MyPillow, a company Lindell built from the ground up after overcoming a drug addiction with prayer in 2009.

Led by attorney Christopher Kachouroff, Lindell’s defense team countered that the case hinged on Lindell’s genuine belief in Coomer and Dominion voting machines perpetuating voter fraud — regardless of whether they actually did.

Kachouroff practices with Dominion Law Center in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Over the course of the two-week trial, jurors heard from others in Lindell’s circle who supported his election fraud claims, along with election experts who vehemently debunked them.

Coomer testified to the emotional distress of finding himself the target of death threats and having to leave behind a career in elections support after developing adjudication patents and working his way up to being Dominion’s director of product strategy and security.

Although this is Coomer’s first case to put 2020 election defamation claims before a jury, it is unlikely to be the last. Coomer’s lawsuit against the Donald Trump campaign, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani is scheduled to go to trial next April, more than a year after the state Court of Appeals upheld the 2021 denial of an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss.

Facing a defamation suit from Dominion in D.C. Circuit, Lindell is likely to return to federal court.

Last year an arbitration panel also found he owed $5 million to a software engineer who participated in the “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge of 2021 — a judgment Lindell has declared he will not pay a dime of.

Joe Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Nina Wang presided over the trial, working patiently to keep both parties on schedule amid meandering testimony.

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