Wednesday, 27 March 2024

Mike Lindell's MyPillow is getting evicted from its Minnesota warehouse after the company failed to cough up over $200,000 in unpaid rent

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
  • Things aren't looking great for Mike Lindell.
  • The embattled businessman is now facing eviction for one of his warehouses in Minnesota. 
  • Lindell's company owes more than $217,000 in rent to its landlord, per the  Star Tribune

Mike Lindell's MyPillow is getting evicted from one of its Minnesota warehouses, the Star Tribune, a local Minnesota newspaper, reported on Tuesday.

"MyPillow has more or less vacated, but we'd like to do this by the book," the landlord's attorney, Sara Filo, said during an eviction court hearing on Tuesday, per Star Tribune.

"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," Filo continued.

MyPillow owes First Industrial more than $217,000 in rent and other charges, per court filings seen by the Star Tribune. It is unclear if MyPillow and its staff have fully vacated the premises, but First Industrial's representatives say they have sent at least four eviction notices to MyPillow since September.

Filo's request was granted by Scott County Chief Judge Caroline Lennon on Tuesday, per the Star Tribune. Lindell and representatives for MyPillow did not immediately respond to BI's queries sent outside regular business hours.

Lindell discussed the eviction in an interview with the Minnesota Reformer published Tuesday.

Lindell told the outlet that the warehouse, located at 4701 Valley Boulevard S. in Shakopee, was one-third the size of MyPillow's main warehouse and was initially used to store retail equipment.

But the property, he told Minnesota Reformer, was no longer as useful to MyPillow since most of the equipment had been auctioned off last year.

"We were just sick about it," Lindell told the outlet.

The eviction notice is a new development in a shocking downward spiral for one of America's biggest pillow salesmen.

Lindell's legal and financial woes have been piling up ever since he became a hardcore advocate for former President Donald Trump's baseless election fraud claims.

Before he became a MAGA acolyte, Lindell inspired many with his rags-to-riches story. The former crack addict turned his fortunes around when he got sober and started MyPillow in 2004.

But Lindell's growing belief in conspiracy theories on election interference has created some dire straits for his pillow business.

Multiple retailers, like Costco, Bed Bath & Beyond, and JCPenney, severed ties with Lindell and MyPillow in 2021. Then, in June 2022, Walmart told BI that it would stop carrying MyPillow products in its stores, though they would still be sold online.

The decline in sales also appears to have put the brakes on MyPillow's marketing activities. Lindell told the Associated Press in January that his company owes Fox News around $7.8 million in advertising fees.

It's not just a loss of income.

Lindell is fighting billion-dollar defamation lawsuits against the voting technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic.

In October, Lindell's lawyers said they were dropping him as a client after he owed them millions in legal fees. Lindell has since engaged new lawyers to represent him in court, per Star Tribune.

Read the original article on Business Insider


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