SHAKOPEE, Minn. — MyPillow is being ordered to leave its Shakopee location after a judge ruled to evict the company Tuesday in Scott County court.
The eviction comes after the building's landlord, First Industrial, L.P., filed an eviction complaint earlier this month for the warehouse on 4701 Valley Industrial Boulevard South, claiming it hadn't received rent from MyPillow for neither February nor March. According to court documents, First Industrial is owed $217, 489.74 for rent and other payments.
Court documents show that there was no representative for MyPillow at Tuesday's hearing as the judge ordered the company to "immediately" vacate the building, while also issuing a writ of recovery.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the company 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, the Associated Press reports, 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. He also said MyPillow continues to lease space elsewhere.
Tuesday's ruling comes one month after a federal judge affirmed Lindell must pay a $5 million arbitration award to a software engineer who challenged data that Lindell said proved China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Lindell is also the subject of a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems in the District of Columbia that says he falsely accused the company of rigging the 2020 presidential election. He’s also the target of a separate defamation lawsuit in Minnesota by a different voting machine company, Smartmatic.
Lindell has conceded that he and MyPillow are struggling financially. Fox News, which had been one of his biggest advertising platforms, stopped running MyPillow commercials in January in a payment dispute. Two law firms that had been defending him against lawsuits by Dominion and Smartmatic quit last fall. He acknowledged that he owed them millions of dollars.
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