Ex-Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne speaks during a panel discussion at the Nebraska Election Integrity Forum on Saturday, Aug. 27, 2022, in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/Rebecca S. Gratz); indicted ex-Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images); Stefanie Lambert attends a rally for Republican candidates in Michigan on Oct. 1, 2022. (Todd McInturf/Detroit News via AP)
After Dominion Voting Systems represented to a federal court that a “Kraken” lawyer and her ex-Overstock CEO client seemed to have found a “more creative” way to leak discovery from the company’s defamation suit, a magistrate judge made clear Friday that a subpoena issued in an indicted Colorado clerk’s criminal case is no exception to the court’s orders.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Dominion alleged that indicted attorney Stefanie Lambert and client Patrick Byrne were possibly involved in a “highly-orchestrated scheme” to share civil suit discovery through a subpoena served on Lambert in the criminal case of indicted ex-Mesa County clerk Tina Peters (R).
Dominion complained that the trio of 2020 election deniers were seemingly working together to use Peters’ criminal case to get around a protective order in the civil suit to “launder[] Dominion’s documents to individuals who are not authorized to receive them,” this after the company moved to disqualify Lambert from representing Byrne for months ago leaking discovery to a Michigan sheriff.
Lambert and Byrne claimed that the leak to Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf was justified because the discovery documents contained “evidence of criminal violations” of “top level Dominion employees directing and tasking foreign nationals to remotely access voting machines utilized in the United States during the November 3, 2020 election.”
On July 1, Lambert sent an email saying that she had been served a subpoena for document production and testimony in Peters’ case, Dominion said. The voting machine company responded by asking the court to tell Lambert that she had to object to the subpoena, especially because the subpoena seemed to contemplate granting the attorney “virtually unfettered, unilateral discretion to produce all of the documents produced by Dominion in this matter—and anything else she deems ‘relevant to the defense of Tina Peters.””
U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya issued an order Friday telling Lambert and Byrne that they are “expressly prohibited from sharing any discovery materials” covered by the existing protective order in the case and that they would face “potential sanctions for contempt of court” if they ignore the warning:
As the Court has repeatedly ordered, Counsel and Parties are expressly prohibited from sharing any discovery materials subject to the Protective Order, outside of this case unless expressly authorized by this Court or in the relevant orders. To avoid any doubt, Defendant and Defendant’s Counsel are expressly prohibited from sharing with any third party the deposition transcript or testimony that is the subject of the Parties’ emails to the Court today pending briefing and further order of the Court. There are no exceptions. Violation of this Order may subject the party or counsel to the full range of available sanctions, including potential sanctions for contempt of court.
Tina Peters currently awaits a state trial in Colorado for allegedly tampering with election equipment, attempting to influence public servants, and engaging in official misconduct by allowing an unauthorized third party to make copies of voting machine hard drives, leading “confidential digital images” of county Dominion equipment and passwords to be “published on the internet.”
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