Staff Reports
Two men who bet on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election have settled the $100 wager after the Trump backer initially refused to pay up.
But there’s a catch.
St. Petersburg resident Sean Hynes, a Donald Trump supporter, sent a message to his Joe Biden-supporting friend, Jeffrey Costa, also of St. Petersburg, suggesting a friendly $100 wager on the presidential election outcome. Costa accepted the bet.
But after Biden was declared the winner late that week Hynes refused to pay up, arguing the election results would be challenged and overturned in court. Costa attempted to reason with Hynes, saying “Trump is mathematically eliminated,” according to a small claims suit filed in Pinellas County on Dec. 28.
According to the suit, Hynes told Costa, “I’ll gladly pay you after it’s settled by law.”
Now, Hynes is ponying up the dough, plus $215 in court costs, but he’s still not letting go of the notion the outcome of the election, which resulted in Biden’s swearing in on Jan. 20, could still be overturned.
The two agreed to a settlement during a Mar. 10 mediation. It stipulates that if the results are overturned by Sept. 10, Costa will return $207.50 to Hynes by Oct. 9.
At the time of the filing, Trump and his allies had already lost dozens of court cases seeking to overturn election results in various swing states Biden won. A recount in Georgia had also upheld Biden’s victory there. The only people at that point who were still arguing the election was stolen and would be overturned before Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration were Trump himself and his most ardent backers.
Hynes’ Facebook feed, which as of mid-January was public, showed a series of posts vaguely questioning the results of the 2020 election. On Jan. 6, the day a mob of Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol, Hynes posted a debunked image of a shirtless man in an animal fur at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk in the House chamber claiming he was Antifa. The man is Jake Angeli, better known as the “Q Shaman,” an ardent follower of QAnon and a known Trump supporter who has since been arrested for his role in the insurrection.
While even most Trump supporters have accepted that Biden is President, some are still maintaining he rightfully won the election and that it was robbed of him via election fraud.
A small faction of QAnon conspiracy theorists believed Trump would be sworn in as the 19th President on Mar. 4, but even that date has come and gone. It’s not clear whether the Sept. 10 deadline in the mediation agreement has any significant relevance to false claims Trump may yet reclaim the White House.
