A District Court judge Friday ordered Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and her legal team to pay Maricopa County $122,200 in sanctions.
“Plaintiffs’ counsel Andrew D. Parker, the law firm of Parker Daniels Kibort LLC, Kurt B. Olsen, and the law firm of Olsen Law PC, are held jointly and severally liable for the Maricopa County Defendants’ attorneys’ fees in the amount of $122,200.00,” ruled Judge John Tuchi.
“Alan M. Dershowitz is held jointly and severally liable with the aforementioned parties up to the amount of $12,220.00.”
Mr. Dershowitz was deemed less liable, the judge explained, because he played a limited role in the failed candidate’s lawsuit against Maricopa County. He is only liable for ten percent of the total amount of sanctions.
Judge Tuchi expressed hope his ruling for sanctions will discourage copycats from filing future similar cases.
“Failing to impose meaningful sanctions here might very well encourage others to follow suit by lending their credibility to documents filed in court without facing any real consequence if their certifications prove hollow or incomplete,” he said. “The need for general deterrence is therefore significant.”
“I did absolutely nothing wrong,” Dershowitz declared to The Epoch Times, promising to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, if necesary.
This order is in connection with Lake’s lawsuit that disputed voting methods. The lawsuit was regarded as “frivolous” by the court, leading to its dismissal and subsequent sanctions.
Lake lost her bid to become Arizona’s governor to former Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, by approximately 17,000 votes in the 2022 midterm election.
Maricopa County Superior Court Justice Peter Thompson ruled against her after a two-day trial in which she sought a new election, or summary judgement declaring her governor.
An expedited review of her trial-level loss by the state’s Court of Appeals failed, in February.
Arizona’s Supreme Court rejected all but one of Ms. Lake’s legal claims regarding her election loss. Justices revived her challenge over how signature verification procedures were used on early ballots in Maricopa County.
More than 60 percent of Arizona voters reside in Maricopa County making a procedural error there determinative in such a closely-decided contest. The state’s high court returned the case to Judge Thompson’s court.
Lake was not able to meet the high bar required to prove her contentions and Thompson again ruled against her.
“The evidence the Court received does not support Plaintiff’s remaining claim,” Thompson wrote.
After Lake’s loss, defendants in her suit filed legal actions against her demanding she reimburse them for the cost of defending her lawsuit.