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A federal jury in Colorado on Monday found that one of the nation’s most prominent election conspiracy theorists, MyPillow founder 

, defamed a former employee for a leading voting equipment company after the 2020 presidential election.

The employee, Eric Coomer, sued after Lindell called him a traitor and accusations about him stealing the election were streamed on Lindell's online media platform.

Coomer was the security and product strategy director at Denver-based 

, whose voting machines became the target of elaborate conspiracy theories among allies of President Donald Trump, who continues to 

 in a defamation lawsuit it filed against Fox News over its 

 against the company and has another lawsuit against the conservative network Newsmax.

 to Coomer in 2021 for airing false allegations against him.

Coomer said during the two-week Lindell trial that his career and life were destroyed by the statements. His lawyers said Lindell either knew the statements were lies, or conveyed them recklessly without knowing if they were true.

Lindell’s lawyers denied the claims and said his online platform, formerly known as Frankspeech, is not liable for statements made by others.

Lindell said he went to trial to draw attention to the need to get rid of 

 He said he used to be worth about $60 million before he started speaking out about the 2020 election and is now 

 where Trump contested his loss in 2020 all affirmed Democrat 

 at the time said there was no evidence of widespread fraud, and Trump and his allies lost 

 that the 2020 presidential election was stolen during the trial, but did not call any experts to present evidence of his claims.

Lindell said his beliefs that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud were influenced by watching the 2020 HBO documentary “Kill Chain” and by the views of Trump's former national security adviser, 

. In an interview for a documentary Lindell made in 2021, Flynn said foreign interference was going to happen in U.S. elections, and Lindell said 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 

 before the 2020 election. The podcast claimed that on the call someone named Eric from Dominion said he would make sure that Trump would not win, a story that was recounted on Frankspeech during a 2021 event. Lindell said he only learned about that during the trial.

Lindell said he never accused Coomer of rigging the election, but he did say he was upset because he said 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 network.

Coomer's lawyers tried to show how their client’s life was devastated by the 

 spreading about him. Lindell was comparatively late to seize on Coomer, not mentioning him until February 2021, well after his name had been circulated by other Trump partisans.

Coomer said the conspiracy theories cost him his job, his mental health and the life he’d built and said Lindell’s statements were the most distressing of all. He specifically pointed to a statement on May 9, 2021, when Lindell described what he believed Coomer had done as “treason.”

Lindell’s attorneys argued that Coomer’s reputation was already in tatters by the time Lindell mentioned him. They said 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.

The Associated Press

Author

Jurors reached the verdict Monday for Lindell, one of the nation’s most prominent election conspiracy theorists.

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

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