Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison investigating MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s charities

The legal activity swirling around MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell now includes an investigation into his charities by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.

Documents filed in Ramsey County District Court last week show Attorney General Keith Ellison has been investigating three nonprofit corporations that list Lindell as president since last summer over potential violations of state charity law.

In August, the Attorney General’s Office served three civil investigative demands on the charities asking for “basic information about their charitable activities, governance, and finances.” The charities have not shared that information, according to a memo filed by Ellison that asks the court to intervene and make the charities comply with the investigation.

Ellison alleges that public documents and evidence has uncovered conflicting financial transactions and a “lack of charitable activities that suggest at least some of the charities may be shams.”

The charities are the Lindell Foundation Inc., the Lindell Recovery Network, and Lindell Foundation Outreach Inc.

According to Guidestar, a database of nonprofits, Lindell Foundation Outreach’s purpose is to use the love of Jesus to “serve the poor — and others who are struggling" while the Lindell Recovery Network aims to “serve with the love of Jesus Christ those who are struggling with drug addiction.”

The three nonprofits have collectively taken in more than $1 million in contributions over the past six years — though the memo says they appear to have actually received hundreds of thousands dollars more — but they are not registered as soliciting charities with the Attorney General’s Office, a legal requirement in Minnesota.

The Lindell Foundation and Lindell Foundation Outreach appear to have more or less dissolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. And while both received “significant contributions” from donors, the Attorney General’s Office alleges they never “got off the ground or provided significant charitable services to Minnesotans.”

The Attorney General’s Office said it had no additional comment and referred to the court documents. Messages left with defense counsel for MyPillow were not immediately returned. A motion hearing in the case is set for May 15 with Ramsey County Judge Leonardo Castro.

Bremer Bank was served with a civil investigative demand in June 2024 and turned over financial records for accounts related to Lindell’s nonprofits. It showed payments in 2021 from Lindell Foundation Outreach to MyPillow of more than $300,000 and to the Lindell Foundation of more than $275,000. “None of which were reported” on Lindell Foundation Outreach tax returns, Ellison writes.

Bank records also showed an additional $150,000 was sent from the charities to consulting companies owned by Larry Ross and Robert Dees. Ross is the director of the foundation. Dees is a board member.

Those large transactions were outliers for Lindell Foundation Outreach. From September 2019 to March 2020 and from November 2020 to August 2021, the account had no financial activity.

The charities confirmed to the Attorney General’s Office that they abandoned operations during the pandemic and never launched the websites that were meant to “deliver charitable programming to the public despite taking in significant contributions.”

Additional allegations include that board members of the charities significantly overlap with the board members of MyPillow, including Lindell. Tax returns for the charities and MyPillow are handled by the same accounting firm and signed off on by MyPillow’s controller.

One of the nonprofits paid a publishing fee immediately after Lindell’s book, “What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO,” was published in 2019. Lindell had said in the media that he had donated $6 million to the Lindell Foundation since its inception but “the charity’s total reported revenues” is $2.6 million.

In 2020, Lindell said he was preparing to host political rallies across Minnesota that would blend the new “faith-based Lindell Recovery Network” with promoting President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and Republican candidates for Congress in the state.

The memo notes that it is illegal for a charity to engage in political campaign activity.

Just as lengthy is what the Attorney General’s Office views as the noncompliance with investigative requests over the past seven months. The charities have argued the requests are an “undue burden” and have not provided the requested financial account information or documentation the state has requested.

The attorney general’s investigative power into Minnesota charities and its “reasonable grounds to believe” Lindell’s charities violated the Nonprofit Corporations Act and other state laws is the essence of their petition, which asks the court to issue an order compelling the charities to provide complete and accurate answers to their investigators and produce all documents requested.

Several lawsuits have been filed against MyPillow in recent years in Minnesota and across the country.

In February, FedEx sued the company for failing to pay more than $9 million in shipping costs. In January, a Hennepin County judge ordered MyPillow to pay nearly $800,000 to shipping company DHL.

Lindell and MyPillow remain mired in three federal libel lawsuits around the 2020 presidential election, with more than $1 billion in potential judgments at stake and millions owed to attorneys. Lindell is also challenging a $5 million arbitration award stemming from his “Prove Mike Wrong” contest in which he challenged anyone to prove that his data regarding election fraud from 2020 was wrong.

In 2023, MyPillow auctioned off equipment and downsized its real estate as a result of the lost business. Lindell said at the time the company’s line of credit had been lowered, and this summer MyPillow faced eviction proceedings over unpaid rent before the case was dropped.

MyPillow recently sued three financial companies after entering into a merchant cash advance for $600,000, which Lindell said amounted to an illegal loan with extreme terms.

Mike Hughlett of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.