Cyber expert awarded $5 million from Mike Lindell asks court to compel MyPillow CEO to pay up

The cybersecurity expert who took on election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and was awarded $5 million from an arbitration panel has asked a federal court to force Lindell to pay up, according to court documents obtained by CNN.

Robert Zeidman entered a contest Lindell sponsored, in which the winner could collect a multimillion-dollar prize if they could debunk Lindell's election data. On Friday, Zeidman asked the US District Court of Minnesota to confirm the arbitration panel's decision to award him the hefty payout. If the court confirms the award, it will allow Zeidman's attorneys to pursue collection from Lindell.

"It's kind of put up or shut up time for Mr. Lindell," said Zeidman's attorney, Brian Glasser, co-founder of Bailey & Glasser LLP. "If Lindell is not a complete fraudster, he should have the ability to pay."

Lindell had already asked a state court to vacate the arbitration panel's decision, according to the new filing from Zeidman's team. Lindell has not yet made any payments to Zeidman.

"This is a complete sham. A complete sham," Lindell told CNN by phone Friday. "The bottom line is this thing is wrong, and I'm not stopping until we prove him wrong."

The pricey battle began in 2021 when Lindell convened what he called a "cyber symposium" to showcase data he claimed to have related to the 2020 election. The MyPillow CEO invited cybersecurity experts to participate in the "Prove Mike Wrong Challenge." If the experts could prove Lindell's data wasn't related to the 2020 election, they could win a multimillion-dollar payout.

Zeidman, up for the challenge, agreed to the contest's contractual terms and soon discovered Lindell's data was nonsensical.

"The data was just so obviously bogus," Zeidman said in an interview with CNN last month. "It surprised me."

After Zeidman brought a claim in arbitration, the arbitration panel awarded him the $5 million payout last month.