Mike Lindell is royally screwed
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- Mike Lindell's lawyers are dropping him as a client because he owes them millions in legal fees.
- Lindell told Politico that he hasn't been able to pay his lawyers at all for the past two months.
- "I don't know where I go from here," Lindell told Politico.
The embattled MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has had a no-good, very bad week, and things just got a lot worse for him.
Lindell's lawyers informed federal judges in Minnesota and Washington on Thursday that they wish to withdraw from representing him in his billion-dollar defamation lawsuits from voting technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smarmatic.
Lawyers from the firms Parker Daniels Kibort LLC and Lewin & Lewin LLP say they're owed millions of dollars in legal fees, per court filings seen by Insider.
Up to the end of 2022, Lindell did pay his lawyers in a timely manner, per the court filing. But that changed in 2023, when "payments began to slow," Andrew Parker, an attorney from Parker Daniels Kibort, wrote in the court filing.
"In addition, around this time, litigation fees and costs dramatically increased," Parker wrote.
"Two relatively small payments were made in August 2020 and two relatively small payments were made in September 2023, but these were only a fraction of the total owed," Parker added.
Parker wrote in his filing as well that his firm had continued to work with Lindell over the last months, with the hope that the pillow CEO would "find a way to secure the financing" to pay off these legal debts.
But the law firm was informed on October 2 by Lindell and MyPillow that they were unable to foot their legal bills, Parker wrote.
He added that Parker Daniels Kibort is a "small litigation and trial firm" that would be placed in "serious financial risk" if it were to keep working for Lindell without being paid.
Both courts have approved the requests to withdraw made by Lindell's lawyers, per court filings.
Lindell told Politico in a story published on Thursday that his lawyers were courageous to take up his case "when nobody else would."
"Over the last two months, we haven't been able to pay these lawyers at all. They came to me and said we can't go on if we can't get paid. I said, there's no money," Lindell told Politico.
Lindells's legal and financial troubles have been piling up in recent months, though he continues to show support for former President Donald Trump's groundless election fraud claims.
On Saturday, Lindell said on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast that his company was facing five audits from the IRS over earnings made by his call center contract workers.
Lindell told Bannon that the audits concerned commissions that some employees earned while working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September, Lindell claimed that MyPillow was financially crippled after American Express slashed its credit line.
"Out of the blue, they took our credit line from a million dollars down to $100,000," Lindell told Bannon, during an interview on the latter's podcast, which aired on September 25.
In July, Lindell auctioned off equipment from his pillow factory in Minnesota. Lindell said at the time that MyPillow had lost more than $100 million in retail sales.
Multiple retailers have already cut ties with MyPillow and Lindell. Walmart told Insider in June 2022 that their stores would no longer carry MyPillow products, but they would still be available online. Other retailers, including Costco, Bed Bath & Beyond, QVC, JCPenney, and Wayfair, have also distanced themselves from Lindell.
But Lindell's challenges have not curbed his spending. He told Insider in March 2022 that he was spending a million dollars a month to develop a video-streaming app and a social media platform. And in August, Lindell unveiled a new Wi-Fi monitoring device that he claimed could protect voting machines from hackers.
"I have spent 50, 60 million dollars. I borrowed five million two weeks ago, I've sold properties and everything to keep it going," Lindell said in an episode of Bannon's "War Room" podcast, which aired on August 17.
Lindell told Politico that he has no immediate plans to hire new lawyers.
"People are going to be afraid to be lawyers," Lindell said. "I don't know where I go from here."
Representatives for MyPillow did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/F9VZhaR
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