The Washington Post reported that Colorado Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter issued a nearly $187,000 fine that the judge hopes will deter others from filing such lawsuits. They must also pay $11,000 in legal fees to the states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, who were both named as defendants in the lawsuit.
“As officers of the Court, these attorneys have a higher duty and calling that requires meaningful investigation before prematurely repeating in court pleadings unverified and uninvestigated defamatory rumors that strike at the heart of our democratic system and were used by others to foment a violent insurrection that threatened our system of government,” wrote the judge.
“They are experienced lawyers who should have known better. They need to take responsibility for their misconduct,” he also said.
The lawyers also falsely claimed that Dominion Voting Systems was part of the scheme and that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg helped. They were demanding $160 billion in damages. It was dismissed in April, but the judge took it a step further by saying that they violated their ethical obligations filing the suit to begin with. He explained that it clogged the courts with frivolous motions using facts that aren’t true.
He went on to call the suit “the stuff of which violent insurrections are made.”