Mypillow’s founder Mike Lindell was responsible for the defamation

Denver (AP) – A federal jury in Colorado discovered on Monday that one of the most prominent electoral conspiracy theorists in the country, the founder of Mypillow, Mike Lindell, defamed a former employee for a leading company of voting equipment after the presidential elections of 2020.

The employee, Eric Coomer, received $ 2.3 million in damages. He had sued after Lindell called him a traitor and the accusations about him stealing the elections were broadcast on the Lindell online media platform.

Coomer was the director of Dominion Voting Systems Security and Product Strategy, based in Denver, whose voting machines became the objective of the elaborate conspiracy theories among the allies of President Donald Trump, who continues to falsely affirmed that his loss before the Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 should be a generalized fraud.

Newsmax apologized with Coomer in 2021 for transmitting false accusations against him.

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

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

Lindell’s lawyers denied the claims and said that their online platform, previously known as Frankspeech, is not responsible for the statements made by others.

Lindell stayed with his false statements that the 2020 presidential elections were stolen during the trial, but did not call any expert to present evidence of their claims.

Lindell said his beliefs that the 2020 elections were contaminated by fraud were influenced to see the 2020 HBO documentary “Kill Chain” and for the opinions of former Trump National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. In an interview for a documentary Lindell made in 2021, Flynn said that the foreign interference was going to happen in the US 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 of a Podcastro de Colorado who claimed to have heard a telephone conference of the Antifa anti -fascist group before the 2020 elections. The podcast said that in the call to someone named Eric de Dominion he said that he would ensure that Trump did not win, a story that was told in Frankspeech during an event of 2021. Lindell said he only learned that he only learned that he only learned.

Lindell said he never accused Coomer of manipulating the elections, but said he was upset because he said that Newsmax blocked him to air to talk about voting machines after he apologized to Coomer. Coomer denied that there was an agreement to block Lindell under his agreement with the network.

Coomer’s lawyers tried to show how their client’s life was devastated by conspiracy theories that extended by him. Lindell arrived relatively late to seize Coomer, not to mention it until February 2021, much after other Trump supporters circulated his name.

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

Lindell’s lawyers argued that Coomer’s reputation was already made Jirons when Lindell mentioned it. They said that Coomer’s own Facebook publications were due in part that belittled Trump, that the former Dominion employee acknowledged that they were “hyperbolic” and had been a mistake.

Lindell denied making any statement he knew he was false about Coomer and testified that he has called many traitorous people. His lawyers argued that the statements were about a matter of public concern, elections, and therefore protected by the first amendment.

But Coomer’s lawyers said the statements crossed the defamation line because Lindell accused Coomer of betrayal, a crime.