A jury in Washington, D.C. on Friday decided former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will pay two Georgia election workers nearly $150 million in damages after being found liable for defaming them as he peddled baseless claims about them rigging the 2020 election.
The jury awarded former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea ArShaye "Shaye" Moss, who brought the suit against Giuliani, $16,171,000 and $16,998,000 in damages for defamation, respectively. The women were each awarded $20 million in damages for emotional distress, and Giuliani must pay an additional $75 million in punitive damages.
The total amount of damages comes out to $148,169,000, a cost that likely makes Giuliani's previously reported financial troubles more dire.
"I don’t regret a damn thing,” Giuliani told Politico's Kyle Cheney as he left the courthouse Friday.
Giuliani said that the jury's ruling is "absurd," adding that he will appeal the decision and explaining that he didn't testify Thursday, which he'd insisted Wednesday he would do, out of fear of being held in contempt by the judge.
“We’re very grateful to the jury for taking the time out of their busy lives to do their civic duty, to listen to everything that we’ve been going through," Moss said during a news conference following the verdict. "I know I won’t be able to retire from my job with the county like my grandmother did, but I hope by us taking these steps, these very big steps, towards justice that I can make her just as proud.”
U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell ruled Giuliani liable for the defamation of Freeman and Moss in a late August default judgement after he conceded to defaming the women a month prior. Howell also ordered the ex-Donald Trump attorney to pay their legal fees and required Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss an additional $230,000 for failing to respond to parts of their lawsuit.
Howell's August ruling left the jury to decide at trial the amount in damages Giuliani would be responsible for. Giuliani attempted to avoid the trial, but Howell denied his effort earlier this month.
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The jury's verdict followed a week of trial in the lawsuit, which began Monday and saw Moss and Freeman's tearful testimonies Tuesday and Wednesday as they described the terror they endured as a result of Giuliani's attacks.
While on the stand Wednesday, Freeman said she had already been overwhelmed by the slew of harrowing threats against her three years ago when Trump placed a larger target on her back.
As part of their spread of unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, Giuliani, Trump and their allies repeatedly accused Freeman and Moss of committing election crimes, making reference to a surveillance video that was heavily circulated across right-wing media. The clip claimed to show the election workers moving suitcases filled with illegal ballots. Giuliani also later accused the pair of handing out USB drives at Atlanta's State Farm Arena, where votes were being counted.
The peddling of fraudulent claims evolved into a smear campaign that resulted in her receiving a deluge of threatening messages. After the former president amplified those claims by mentioning her 18 times in an infamous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the threats intensified.
“I just felt like ‘really?’ This is the former president talking about me? Me? How mean, how evil? I just was devastated,” Freeman recalled Wednesday, holding back tears. “I didn’t do nothing. It just made me feel … you don’t care that I’m a real person.”
The virulent threats upended her life, Freeman testified. People started to come to her home, send her threatening voicemails and letters, and barrage her social media accounts with violent and racist messages. Following advice from the FBI, she said she eventually left her longtime home after learning that her name was on a "death list" someone who had just been arrested — likely Oath Keeper affiliate Thomas Caldwell — had kept.
Giuliani reportedly did not show any remorse during the women's testimony.
He instead doubled down on his election lies despite his earlier concession, telling reporters outside of the courthouse Monday that he intended to testify they were true, a move that garnered harsh rebuke from the judge. Giuliani, however, did not take the stand.
Freeman and Moss originally filed the lawsuit against Giuliani and other defendants on Dec. 23, 2021, accusing them of defamation, civil conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They amended the suit in May 2022 to accuse Giuliani alone and sought between $14 million and $41 million from him.
Though the election worker's civil case against Giuliani has concluded, the ex-Trump lawyer remains in legal peril and faces the potential of paying millions of dollars more in other civil cases.
Giuliani has been charged with 13 felony counts, including conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer and conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, in Fulton County, Ga. for his efforts to help Trump remain in office despite his 2020 electoral defeat and interfere with the state's 2020 election results. He has been identified as one of Trump's unindicted co-conspirator's in special counsel Jack Smith's parallel but separate federal election subversion case into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The former famed New York mayor also faces lawsuits from former employees and others, the most recent of which was filed by President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, who accuses Giuliani of misusing data on the younger Biden's personal laptop.
His other lawsuits include one from his former lawyer, Robert Costello for over his alleged failure to pay legal fees, another brought by international voting tech company Smartmatic for defamation connected to his peddling of fraudulent claims of election fraud, and another from his former assistant Noelle Dunphy, who accuses him of sexual assault and wage theft.
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