Mike Lindell has suffered another self-inflicted loss in a long-running lawsuit over the $5 million he owes to an engineer who proved that data claimed by the Minnesota pillow magnate to be definitive proof of foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election was nothing of the sort.
A federal magistrate judge in the North Star State ruled on Monday that the pro-Donald Trump businessman had failed to provide court-ordered financial information to plaintiff Robert Zeidman as the latter litigated the collection of the multimillion-dollar prize he won in the 2020 “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge.
In a brief two-page order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster stated that Lindell’s company had “not complied with its discovery obligations” to Zeidman, failing to respond even when the engineer’s attorney filed a motion to compel the information from Lindell.
Zeidman previously told the court that Lindell provided him with password-protected QuickBooks files. He also claimed that Lindell failed to produce requested documents and answer certain interrogation questions.
“Because Lindell did not oppose the Motion [to Compel], the Court finds these discovery requests are reasonable and grants the motion,” Foster wrote in its entirety.
The documents and information sought by Zeidman are concerned with identifying any entities owing Lindell and his company money, as well as any debts owed by Lindell and the company.
The case arose from Lindell’s disastrous “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge at a 2021 “Cyber Symposium” he hosted in South Dakota with the goal of demonstrating data that he claimed proved Chinese interference in the election.
Lindell promised that during the symposium, he would reveal “cyber data and packet captures from the 2020 November election.” Lindell stated at the time that the challenge aimed to “find proof that this cyber data is not valid data from the November [2020] election.”
In other words, contestants had to show that the data Lindell presented was not “from the 2020 presidential election.” The prize is a significant sum of money.
“For the people who find the evidence, 5 million is their reward,” according to the challenge announcement.
Zeidman, a Trump supporter, picked up the poly-foam gauntlet thrown down by the former QVC star. Despite serious doubts about his abilities, Zeidman won the competition.
Lindell issued the challenge, stating that his team of experts would provide “cyber data and packet captures from the 2020 November election” and that the goal of the challenge was to “find proof that this cyber data is not valid data from the November Election.”
Contestants who could prove the data was not from the 2020 election would receive $5 million, according to the announcement.
The rules of the challenge also stated that any disputes about winning or losing would be resolved through mandatory arbitration.
After proving Lindell incorrect, the MyPillow founder’s hand-picked three-person panel ruled against the engineer. Zeidman emerged victorious in the arbitration. Lindell filed a state court motion to vacate the award.
Zeidman filed an appeal in federal court seeking to enforce the award. Both cases were eventually consolidated and moved to federal court.
In February 2024, a Minnesota federal court upheld the arbitrator’s findings and Zeidman’s $5 million win.
“The panel concluded that Zeidman proved that each file did not include packet capture data and thus was not related to the November 2020 election.
So he had satisfied the challenge rules and was entitled to the $5 million reward,” U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim’s opinion enforcing the award reads.
In ruling for Zeidman, the federal court also added post-judgment interest that had begun to accrue since April 2023, when the arbitration panel first ruled in his favor.
Since then, the company has experienced a steady stream of legal losses. Lindell’s attorneys dropped out of the case several times. Meanwhile, the court repeatedly ruled in Zeidman’s favor regarding discovery issues.
Zeidman was awarded attorneys’ fees in August 2024 for Lindell Management’s discovery delinquencies.
