PHOENIX — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake won't defend herself against allegations that she defamed Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, according a court motion filed Tuesday by Lake's legal team.
Lake's lawyers asked the Maricopa County judge handling the case to enter a default judgment against Lake and proceed to a speedy hearing before a jury on monetary damages for Richer.
The motion amounts to a concession by Lake that her statements cited by Richer in his lawsuit last June were defamatory.
In a two-minute social media video, Lake claimed she was the target of forces that want to "stop me and bleed me dry."
"By participating in this lawsuit," she said, "it would only serve to legitimize this perversion of our legal system and allow bad actors to interfere in our upcoming election. So I won't be taking part."
According to Richer's lawsuit, Lake's false statements about his elections role subjected him to "violent vitriol" and death threats.
"She just said to a court of law, 'Yes, I did defame him,'" Richer, a lawyer who is running for a second term as county recorder, said in an interview Tuesday.
"For the past six months, she's been doing anything she possibly can to defeat this in a court of law. And now when things are turned against her, she throws up her hands and says, 'I'm going to walk away.' Sorry, that's not how the process works."
Lake's legal gambit comes three weeks after the Arizona Supreme Court rejected her bid to dismiss Richer's lawsuit.
That put the lawsuit on the path to a trial -- possibly at the height of the fall election season -- with both sides trading relevant documents and both Lake and Richer subject to sworn depositions.
Richer said he would seek "millions" in damages.
"She says millions of Arizonans put great trust into her," Richer said.
"She told those millions of Arizonans not once, not twice, not three times, but time after time after time, that I am a criminal who committed very specific criminal acts."
Richer sued Lake, her husband, her campaign and the Save Arizona Fund tied to Lake.
Mark Kokanovich, a civil litigator and former prosecutor who works at Ballard Spahr in Phoenix, said Lake was "playing with fire" in the damages portion of the case.
"It's very dangerous once you concede that you're liable for defamation," he said in an interview.
"A default judgment is essentially an admission of liability and admission that the statements that were made were false statements and knowingly false statements."
"When you have default judgment entered against you," Kokanovich said, "the matter is usually closed. And the court determines what damages are, based on the evidence that's provided by one side, because the other side is, is not playing and is not participating in the in the litigation."
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