Jury Finds MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Liable for Defamation

A federal jury found that MyPillow CEO and prominent election denier Mike Lindell defamed former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer on the trial's eleventh day in a federal courthouse in downtown Denver.

Coomer had asked for $62.7 million in compensation for statements made by Lindell and others on Lindell's streaming platform, FrankSpeech, that alleged Coomer had rigged the 2020 presidential election; the jury awarded him only a fraction of that, about $2.3 million. Coomer filed his lawsuit against Lindell, FrankSpeech and MyPillow, claiming a civil conspiracy between the three entities, but MyPillow wasn't found liable at all.

The jury found Lindell responsible for two statements he made calling Coomer "treasonous" and a "traitor," but did not find that he acted recklessly or inflicted emotional distress or participated in a civil conspiracy against him, resulting in a $440,500 judgment for economic and non-economic damages. FrankSpeech was also found liable for three statements made on the streaming platform, and the jury decided FrankSpeech did act recklessly and inflict emotional distress on Coomer, resulting in an additional $1,865,500 in combined damages.

The trial featured testimony by conservative Colorado podcaster Joe Oltmann, the originator of the claim that Coomer participated in an "antifa conference call" on Zoom in September 2020 when he promised that Trump wasn't going to win, he'd made "fucking sure of it."

Local activist and former Denver Public Schools board member Tay Anderson swore in an affidavit that he'd set up a Black Lives Matter conference call around the same date, with the same number of participants, and Oltmann's notes reference "Tay." Anderson swore there was no one named Eric or from Dominion on the call.

Former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters, currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for mishandling election equipment, also made an appearance in the trial by video deposition.

On LindellTV — the current incarnation of Lindell's FrankSpeech streaming platform — fellow election denier and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani announced the verdict Monday afternoon: "My version of the verdict is, he just kicked them all around the courtroom. I mean, the verdict is measly."

A moment later, Lindell appeared live from the courthouse steps. "MyPillow is 100 percent vindicated," he told Giuliani. "This is a huge victory for our country. ... It's a huge breakthrough about free speech, our First Amendment rights and to try to suppress us with lawfare and attacks, continuously over the last four years."

Earlier that day, before the verdict was in, Oltmann took to X to attack Judge Nina Y. Wang, who oversaw the trial. "I said I would keep quiet but I cannot any longer," he wrote. "The judge in the Mike Lindell lawsuit is a paid communist operative and what she has done is nothing short of despicable. ... This is what rotted and evil looks like."

Lindell said he plans to appeal the jury's decision. Coomer has several other defamation lawsuits pending, including one against Donald Trump's presidential campaign; Oltmann is a codefendant in that case.