WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer representing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne was detained on Monday at the federal courthouse in Washington. Stefanie Lambert was arrested for disseminating internal documents from Dominion Voting Systems, reigniting baseless claims about the 2020 election.
Lambert is facing a bench warrant in Michigan, where she is accused of participating in a conspiracy to tamper with voting machines in an attempt to find evidence of fraud. Meanwhile, she is also representing Byrne, who is being sued by Dominion for defamation over false allegations that their machines enabled vote tampering.
The U.S. Marshals office confirmed Lambert’s arrest on Monday. In court, Lambert admitted to making public emails she obtained as Byrne’s lawyer and sharing them with a sheriff in Michigan who was being investigated in connection with the alleged plot.
Dominion requested that Lambert be removed from the case after the release of the documents. Their attorney, Davida Brook, argued that the company had filed suits against Byrne and others to end the spread of false information and threats of violence. Brook stated that Lambert’s actions were causing further harm and had resulted in new violent threats against Dominion employees.
Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya stated that she needed more time to decide whether Lambert should be removed from the case. In the meantime, both Lambert and Byrne were prohibited from accessing discovery materials, and Lambert was ordered to move to seal the Michigan court document containing Dominion’s records.
After the hearing, Lambert remained in the courtroom while the other attorneys left. U.S. Marshals then entered the courtroom and locked the door, detaining Lambert.
Lambert’s defense attorney in Michigan, Daniel Hartman, declined to comment on her whereabouts on Monday but argued that her failure to appear in court was not intentional. He claimed that there were mixed messages about whether she needed to be fingerprinted while challenging the court’s orders.
Lambert recently became Byrne’s lead attorney in Washington. In court, she claimed to have been helping with the case since late last year and stated that she gained access to the documents sometime after the holidays.
During the hearing, Lambert argued that she was under no obligation to adhere to the protective order barring disclosure because the emails contained evidence of a crime. She alleged a conspiracy between Dominion and foreign nationals in Serbia to undermine the U.S. election system, a claim Dominion’s attorneys dismissed as baseless and xenophobic.
Lambert said that she only gave access to the Dominion case discovery storage to Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who then shared the documents with other sheriffs and members of Congress.
The judge’s immediate goal was to prevent further leakage of protected information into the public sphere. The judge also stated that Byrne must be in court for the next hearing to determine if Lambert should face penalties.
Dominion was alerted to the leaks by Byrne’s previous attorney, who informed them that he had asked Lambert to prevent further disclosure of confidential material. Lambert’s criminal trial in Michigan is set to begin next month, while a trial date in the Dominion case has not been set. Dominion settled a similar suit with Fox News last year for $787 million and is currently suing Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, OAN, and Mike Lindell.