ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- A court plans to order the eviction of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used, but company founder and prominent election denier Mike Lindell said Wednesday that it's just a formality because the landlord wants to take the property back.
Lindell denied in an interview with The Associated Press that the eviction was another sign of his money woes. He said his financial picture is actually improving after a credit crunch last year disrupted cash flow at MyPillow after the company lost one of its major advertising platforms and was dropped by several national retailers.
"We're fine," he said.
Lindell faced a setback last month when a federal judge affirmed a $5 million arbitration award in favor of a software engineer who challenged data that Lindell said proves China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and tipped the outcome to Joe Biden. Lindell acknowledged in January that Fox News stopped running MyPillow commercials amid a billing dispute.
Lindell confirmed Wednesday that MyPillow owes around $217,000 to Delaware-based First Industrial LP for rent for the facility in Shakopee. He said MyPillow no longer needed the space and removed its remaining property from the warehouse last June before subleasing the space to another company through December.
Another company was going to start subleasing the space in January but backed out and "left us all stranded," he said. MyPillow offered to find another tenant, he said, but the landlord just wanted to take back control of the warehouse instead. The $217,000 is for unpaid rent for January and February, he said. He also said MyPillow continues to lease space elsewhere.
The Star Tribune reported that a Scott County judge on Tuesday said she would approve the warehouse owner's request to formally evict MyPillow, which did not contest the landlord's request.
"MyPillow has more or less vacated but we'd like to do this by the book," attorney Sara Filo, representing First Industrial, said during a hearing Tuesday, the newspaper reported. "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."
Lindell, who continues to propagate former President Donald Trump's lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, in part by rigged voting machine systems, still faces defamation lawsuits by two voting machine companies. Lawyers who were originally defending him in those cases quit over unpaid bills.
