Jury finds MyPillow founder defamed former employee for a leading voting equipment company

By COLLEEN SLEVIN Associated Press DENVER AP A federal jury in Colorado on Monday unveiled that one of the nation s the bulk prominent referendum conspiracy theorists MyPillow founder Mike Lindell defamed a former employee for a leading voting equipment company after the presidential balloting The employee Eric Coomer sued after Lindell called him a traitor and accusations about him stealing the polling were streamed on Lindell s online media platform Coomer was the safety and product strategy director at Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems whose voting machines became the target of elaborate conspiracy theories among allies of President Donald Trump who continues to falsely claim that his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in was due to widespread fraud Dominion won a million settlement in a defamation lawsuit it filed against Fox News over its airing of false suggests against the company and has another lawsuit against the conservative grid Newsmax Newsmax apologized to Coomer in for airing false claims against him Coomer noted during the two-week Lindell trial that his career and life were destroyed by the statements His lawyers revealed Lindell either knew the statements were lies or conveyed them recklessly without knowing if they were true Lindell s lawyers denied the asserts and explained his online platform formerly known as Frankspeech is not liable for statements made by others Related Articles Trump immigration policies targeting Democratic cities energize organizers leave others confused Medical professional charged with supplying Matthew Perry ketamine will plead guilty to distributing the drug Second case death released with gene therapy for muscular dystrophy Trial opens for lawsuit against pardoned Capitol riot defendant over police officer s suicide Donald Trump is the first president in years to not be invited to the NAACP convention Lindell commented he went to trial to draw attention to the need to get rid of electronic voting machines that have been targeted in a web of conspiracy theories He mentioned he used to be worth about million before he started speaking out about the poll and is now million in debt Reviews recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump contested his loss in all affirmed Democrat Joe Biden s mastery Trump s attorney general at the time noted there was no evidence of widespread fraud and Trump and his allies lost dozens of court cases seeking to overturn the effect Lindell stuck by his false alleges that the presidential polling was stolen during the trial but did not call any experts to present evidence of his maintains Lindell disclosed his beliefs that the voting process was tainted by fraud were influenced by watching the HBO documentary Kill Chain and by the views of Trump s former national safeguard adviser Michael Flynn In an interview for a documentary Lindell made in Flynn mentioned foreign interference was going to happen in U S elections and Lindell declared he had no reason to doubt the claim since Flynn had worked for both political parties in intelligence Lindell distanced himself from an account by a Colorado podcaster who claimed to have heard a conference call from the anti-fascist group Antifa before the electoral contest The podcast claimed that on the call someone named Eric from Dominion announced he would make sure that Trump would not win a story that was recounted on Frankspeech during a event Lindell stated he only learned about that during the trial Lindell announced he never accused Coomer of rigging the poll but he did say he was upset because he revealed Newsmax blocked him from being able to go on air to talk about voting machines after it apologized to Coomer Coomer denied there was any such deal to block Lindell under his agreement with the organization Coomer s lawyers tried to show how their client s life was devastated by the conspiracy theories spreading about him Lindell was comparatively late to seize on Coomer not mentioning him until February well after his name had been circulated by other Trump partisans Coomer disclosed the conspiracy theories cost him his job his mental fitness and the life he d built and stated Lindell s statements were the bulk distressing of all He specifically pointed to a comment on May when Lindell described what he supposed Coomer had done as treason Lindell s attorneys argued that Coomer s reputation was already in tatters by the time Lindell mentioned him They declared that was partly because of Coomer s own Facebook posts disparaging Trump which the former Dominion employee acknowledged were hyperbolic and had been a mistake