An arbitration panel has ordered MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell to pay $5 million to a software engineer who proved that his claims about election fraud were false.
In August 2021, Lindell held a contest during a cyber symposium where he offered $5 million to anyone who could prove that his data from the 2020 election wasn't valid. Lindell claimed to have proof that China meddled with voting machines to tip the outcome of the election in favor of President Joe Biden.
One of the attendees at the symposium, software developer Robert Zeidman, was given 11 files to review over the course of two days, but he says it only took a few hours to find that the data was false. When Lindell refused to pay, Zeidman filed for arbitration.
After conducting an investigation, the three arbitrators found that Zeidman had proved the files didn't contain information relating to the election and therefore definitively won the "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," the arbitrators wrote. “Failure to pay Mr. Zeidman the $5 million prize was a breach of the contract, entitling him to recover.”
Lindell was given 30 days to pay up.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell says FBI agents seized his cellphone
Lindell has been charged in what prosecutors say was a "deceptive scheme" to breach voting system technology used across the country.
"I am obviously really happy about the arbitrators' decision," Zeidman said in a statement. "They clearly saw this as I did — that the data we were given at the symposium was not at all what Mr. Lindell said it was. The truth is finally out there."
Zeidman's attorney said the ruling marked "another important moment in the ongoing proof that the 2020 election was legal and valid" and that Lindell's claims of election fraud were "definitively disproved."
Lindell disputed the ruling, saying he would release the data for the public to review.
"It's going to end up in court,” Lindell told the Associated Press. “I'm not going to pay anything. ... He didn't prove anything.”
Lindell, who was once an adviser to former President Donald Trump, also faces a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems that says Lindell falsely accused the company of rigging the 2020 election.
"I'm afraid he's going to be out of money before I ever see my $5 million," Zeidman told Scripps News.
