Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow Inc., speaks during a campaign rally for then President Donald Trump at the Duluth International Airport on September 30, 2020 in Duluth, Minnesota (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images).
It’s no secret that MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s stolen 2o2o election claims have proved costly, as ongoing billion-dollar defamation actions by voting machine companies racked up astronomical legal bills he could no longer pay. As a result, he’s lost attorneys along the way, in at least two cases. Now, MyPillow has lost a warehouse.
A judge in Scott County, Minn., on Tuesday reportedly ruled in favor of First Industrial at an eviction hearing Tuesday, crediting the landlord’s claims that MyPillow tallied more than $200,000 in unpaid rent for its Shakopee warehouse.
As far back as October, Lindell himself confirmed that MyPillow had been “decimated” by the defamation lawsuits that Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic filed against several pro-Donald Trump figures who insisted the voting machine companies orchestrated a plot to hand the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
“We’ve lost hundreds of millions of dollars,” Lindell said, claiming he’s been persecuted simply because he questioned the “security of our elections.” He also claimed to have “$10,000 to my name.”
More Law&Crime coverage: MyPillow founder Mike Lindell’s attorneys bail on him as he fights $5M ‘Prove Mike Wrong’ challenge award
Despite the apparent financial challenges, Lindell most recently managed to take his quest to get his cell phone back all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The phone was seized in 2022 by the FBI at a Hardee’s drive-thru in Mankato while Lindell headed back from a duck hunting trip. The feds revealed later that they had executed a identity theft, intentional damage to a protected computer, and conspiracy warrant, as part of a probe in which Lindell was considered a “subject” (as opposed to a “target”).
On Tuesday, Scott County Chief Judge Caroline Lennon dealt yet another blow to the pillow salesman’s business, leaving it without one place to rest its head following four default notices and $217,000 in unpaid rent. The Associated Press reported that MyPillow was ordered to “immediately” vacate the premises.
The Star Tribune reported that MyPillow is leasing a second warehouse in Shakopee, but the eviction development raises questions about whether that location’s rent will be paid.
Sara Filo, an attorney for MyPillow’s landlord First Industrial, reportedly said in court that the company “has more or less vacated but we’d like to do this by the book.”
“At this point there’s a representation that no further payment is going to be made under this lease, so we’d like to go ahead with finding a new tenant,” Filo reportedly added.
Lindell is separately appealing a $5 million arbitration award that an electrical engineer and software developer Robert Zeidman won after accepting the MyPillow CEO’s “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge.
“He proved the data Lindell LLC provided, and represented reflected information from the November 2020 election, unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data. Failure to pay Mr. Zeidman the $5 million prized was a breach of the contract, entitling him to recover,” the April 2023 decision said.
