Kari Lake and Mark Finchem
Ray Stern
Lawyers for unsuccessful Arizona candidates Kari Lake and Mark Finchem will have to pay $122,200 for filing a baseless lawsuit attempting to ban the use of voting machines prior to the November election, a federal judge has ruled.
The ruling puts a dollar figure to sanctions ordered last year by Arizona U.S. District Court Judge John Tuchi and covers the legal costs by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Lake and Finchem, Republicans who lost to Democrats Gov. Katie Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, respectively, won’t have to pay any of the sanctions themselves. But their attorneys are accountable for filing a lawsuit in bad faith, said Deputy County Attorney Tom Liddy.
“These guys run a lawsuit with no evidence at all and waste $122,000 of taxpayer money — but now we got it back,” Liddy said.
The ruling orders lawyers Andrew D. Parker and his law firm, Parker Daniels Kibort LLC, and Kurt B. Olsen and his law firm, Olsen Law PC, along with Dershowitz to together pay $122,200, except that Dershowitz’s share of the sanctions is capped at $12,220. Parker, in responding to a request for comment, said he would appeal the decision.
