The winner of a contest that MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell created for people to try to disprove his election fraud claims has asked a federal court to make Lindell pay him the money after the ally of former President Trump has refused.
Lindell promised to pay $5 million to anyone who could disprove his data that he claimed had proven widespread voter fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election. A private arbitration panel found last month that a report submitted by Robert Zeidman, a software expert, debunked Lindell’s claims and ordered Lindell to pay him the $5 million within 30 days of the ruling.
Lindell filed a motion in state court in Minnesota on Thursday to try to get the panel’s ruling tossed out and have the award vacated, arguing that the panel exceeded its powers in issuing the ruling.
Zeidman responded by filing a petition in federal court in Minnesota on Friday to get Lindell to pay him $5 million plus 10 percent interest per year until it is paid, in accordance with state law.
The arbitration panel had found that Lindell repeatedly claimed in public and television appearances that he had data proving the 2020 election was fraudulent and launched the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge.” Lindell’s team told Zeidman that he did not win the challenge based on his report, leading Zeidman to file an arbitration claim.
“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 panel ruled.
Lindell told The Washington Post in an interview that he plans to fight the panel’s ruling and Zeidman is only pursuing the money to try to “discredit” the evidence he has of the election fraud.
“It’s not about payment, it’s wrong. They’re just doing this trying to discredit the evidence and the evidence is all there,” he said. “We’re taking it to court. It’s just all corrupt.”
The Post reported that vacating the award would require the court finding that the panel committed misconduct, exceeded its powers or that the process was corrupt.
Brian Glasser, an attorney for Zeidman, told the Post that “no circumstances” exist in which he would let Lindell “run away with that money.”