Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer at an Oct. 20, 2022, event in Phoenix. Photo by Gage Skidmore (modified) || Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
CAITLIN SIEVERS
Arizona Mirror
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer is suing Kari Lake and her campaign for defamation, after enduring a continuous onslaught of vitriol and false claims from her and her followers.
Richer, a Republican, has been one of Lake’s favorite targets as she continues to claim that the 2022 governor’s race was stolen from her, in the same fashion that she claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from her political idol, Donald Trump.
“For the last seven months, I have been subjected to constant harassment, intimidation, and threats to my and my family’s lives because the defendants in this case were spreading falsehoods about me, my work, and our elections,” Richer said in a statement. “While I followed the law and respected the will of millions of Arizona voters after the 2022 election, the defendants chose to engage in a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation, threaten my livelihood, and rob me and my loved ones of our safety and well-being.”
Lake, also a Republican, lost the Arizona gubernatorial race last November to Democrat Katie Hobbs by more than 17,000 votes.
On Thursday, Richer, in his personal capacity, filed a defamation suit in Maricopa County Superior court against Lake, her campaign and the Save Arizona Fund, a dark money nonprofit that Lake controls and that has raised untold sums of money to fund her legal efforts to overturn the 2022 election.
“Since the November 2022 election, Defendants have repeatedly and falsely accused Richer of causing Lake’s electoral defeat, including by claiming that Richer — a registered Republican — sabotaged the election to prevent Republican candidates, including Lake, from winning,” Daniel Maynard, Richer’s attorney, wrote in the complaint.
The suit specifically focuses on Lake’s claim that Richer “intentionally printed 19-inch images on 20-inch ballots to sabotage the 2022 general election,” resulting in 300,000 “illegal, invalid, phony or bogus” early ballots being counted in Maricopa County.
Although Lake has brought this claim to the Maricopa County Superior Court, the Arizona Court of Appeals and the Arizona Supreme Court, none of those courts found her evidence convincing, and the claims were all dismissed.
More:
