A Douglas County-based conservative podcaster has been ordered by a court to pay over $90,000 in fees and sanctions for refusing to cooperate with a lawsuit against him.
Joe Oltmann, host of the Conservative Daily podcast, has widely claimed that Denver-based election equipment maker Dominion Voting Systems colluded to rig the 2020 election and give former President Joe Biden the win. Both the company and a former employee directly accused by Oltmann have filed numerous defamation lawsuits over the false claims.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Senior Judge William J. Martinez ordered Oltmann to pay $37,000 for fleeing the courthouse during a deposition last year and cover $53,757 for plaintiff Eric Coomer’s litigation costs related to Oltmann’s non-compliance.
Coomer is the former director of product security and strategy for Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems.
After the 2020 election, Oltmann came forward with claims that he had sat in on an earlier conference call held by ‘Antifa organizers,’ where “Eric from Dominion" explicitly said he’d made sure Trump wouldn’t win. Oltmann would go on to retell this story repeatedly, even after numerous government agencies, audits and court cases found no voter fraud or tampering.
Coomer said the first threat of many made against him came from Oltmann, five days after the election.
As part of the proceedings in Coomer’s defamation lawsuit, U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathryn A. Starnella ordered Oltmann to provide documents of the call and undergo a deposition last June.
However, Oltmann left the building without court permission during a break in the deposition, and, according to court documents, went home and recorded a podcast episode in which he disparaged Judge Starnella and suggested violence against anyone who “may come for him.”
Starnella recommended that Oltmann pay penalties for contempt of court. Judge Martinez agreed, and last September, Oltmann was ordered to pay a daily fine of $1,000 until he complied fully with Judge Starnella’s orders.
Shortly after, Oltmann began crowdfunding to pay the fine. According to 9News, he said he would go broke due to the fine and the fact that three of his businesses severed ties with him.
He appealed to the sanction, but had that rejected. A three-judge panel for the 10th Circuit Court found that Oltmann’s lawyer, Randy Corporon, committed misconduct by making at least one baseless argument on appeal.
This ruling allowed Judge Martinez to also charge Oltmann for Coomer's litigation expenses during Oltmann's appeal. The next day, Martinez resumed the daily $1,000 fine. On July 16, the parties told Martinez they reached a settlement.
