Attorneys for Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake moved to forfeit a defamation case against her on Tuesday, choosing not to contest the allegations that she defamed a state election worker after the 2022 election.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer ® sued Lake last year in his personal capacity, claiming Lake defamed him after she refused to concede her 2022 Arizona gubernatorial defeat and alleged election fraud.
The lawsuit claims that Lake consistently and systemically lied about Richer’s actions as recorder, causing him to receive harassment and numerous threats to his life. Richer added that Lake claimed without evidence that he stuffed ballot boxes with 300,000 invalid votes and used his role as recorder to make the ballot unclear for voters.
To be fair, this is a civil case, so there isn’t really a “guilty” or “not guilty” verdict. But if I’m reading this correctly, she’s not settling this case, but instead is just not going to defend herself in court, which will probably result in a ruling in favor of the plaintiff and her owing damages to him.
Its basically a No Contest plea
I guess my problem is that this decision basically makes the public awareness of her actions go away for most people. It matters to me because she is running for public office.