Mike Lindell must pay the attorney fees of a man who won his “Prove Mike Wrong” competition, a federal magistrate judge ordered this week.
Lindell owes Robert Zeidman $4,508 in attorney fees in connection to the competition, the judge wrote in the ruling Thursday.
When reached for comment by Business Insider on Thursday, Lindell initially said he had “no idea” what the court order was referring to.
After reviewing the ruling, Lindell responded: “More attacks !”
Attorneys for Zeidman and Lindell did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
The MyPillow CEO continues to rack up costs associated with the competition, which he launched in August 2021, promising $5 million to any person who could comb through and disprove his “cyber data and packet captures from the November 2020 election.”
Since 2020, Lindell has repeatedly and erroneously claimed that the presidential election was rigged. The far-right conspiracy theorist offered the hefty sum of cash to any person who could prove his trove of data was “not valid” election information.
Enter Robert Zeidman, the computer scientist who joined Lindell’s competition and did just that.
Zeidman effectively demonstrated Lindell’s “data” contained generic information about polling and was unrelated to the election entirely, according to an April 2023 arbitration panel decision.
Lindell, however, refused to pay Zeidman, so the competition winner took Lindell to court for $5 million plus interest.
The two men and their lawyers went back and forth in court for months until a judge ruled on the matter in February of this year, ordering Lindell to pay Zeidman the $5 million prize money, plus 10 months’ interest within a month of the decision.
Zeidman also requested reimbursement of the attorney fees he acquired while fighting Lindell in court. According to US Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster’s Thursday order, he sought $12,800 for 16.1 billed hours at a rate of $800 per hour.
Attorneys for Lindell took issue with Zeidman’s requested amount, arguing that the $800 per hour rate exceeds a “reasonable hourly rate” for legal work in Minnesota, where the case was brought.
Foster ruled in partial favor of Zeidman this week, ordering Lindell to pay a portion of his requested attorney’s fees and knocking down the hourly rate.
“Based on the information in the record and the Court’s own knowledge and experience regarding prevailing market rates, and taking into account the uncomplicated nature of this discovery dispute, the Court concludes that an hourly rate of $400 per hour is most in line with those prevailing in the community for similar services,” Foster wrote.
The judge also applied a 30% deduction to Zeidman’s counsel hours, saying his discovery requests were overbroad.
In total, Lindell owes Zeidman $4,508 in attorney fees, the judge ordered.
The “Prove Mike Wrong” competition is just one of several legal battles Lindell has been fighting in recent years.
The businessman and his pillow empire are defending defamation lawsuits brought by the Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. Lindell falsely alleged the election technology companies manipulated election results in 2020.
In recent months, Lindell’s lawyers have quit, citing unpaid fees.
