SerpApi.Org
After Mike Lindell was held in civil contempt and hit with a $500-per-day fine for 103 days for refusing to pay sanctions he's owed Smartmatic for years, a federal judge has given the MyPillow CEO exactly one month to pay an "extra penalty" for his defiance.
In late June, Smartmatic asked U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to clarify whether the voting machine conspiracy theorist would pay some of the contempt penalty to the company or if the sum was to be paid directly to the court. The judge, a Donald Trump appointee, answered that question on Monday by entering a judgment in favor of Smartmatic and giving Lindell until Aug. 21 to "pay the total daily contempt penalty of $51,500" to the "Registry of the Court."
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox."'When a sanction is designed to coerce a recalcitrant party to comply, the sanction should be payable to the court, rather than to the opposing party,'" Nichols explained in a footnote, quoting case law. "[T]he Court imposed the daily civil contempt penalty to coerce compliance, not to compensate Smartmatic[.]"
Nichols started fining Lindell in April after rejecting his claimed inability to pay $56,369 in sanctions for filing "frivolous" counterclaims against Smartmatic. The judge noted, for instance, that the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate spent $187,037.87 in campaign funds to buy copies of his own book "What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO" from his company — just to give the books away.
Smartmatic said there was clear proof that Lindell had the money or the assets to pay the sanctions, but chose to defy Nichols' orders. From there, the company insisted that a daily fine was needed to "coerce" the MyPillow CEO's "compliance."
To date, nothing has moved Lindell to comply, so the judge put him on the hook to the federal court in Washington, D.C. — and threatened more sanctions.
"If Lindell fails to timely pay that amount to the Court," the judge warned, "the Court may impose further sanctions to coerce compliance."
The post 'Recalcitrant' MyPillow guy must pay 'extra penalty' in lump sum directly to court for defying orders, judge rules first appeared on Law & Crime.
