Jury awards huge damages to Georgia election workers over Giuliani lies

A jury on Friday awarded $148 million in damages to two former Georgia election workers who sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation over lies he spread about them in 2020 and upended their lives with racist threats and harassment.

The damages verdict follows emotional testimony from Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, who tearfully described being the target of a false conspiracy theory pushed by Giuliani and other Republicans as they tried to keep the Republican in power. then-President Donald Trump after he lost the 2020 election.

A gasp could be heard in the courtroom as the jury foreman read aloud the award of $75 million in punitive damages to the women. Moss and Freeman each received approximately $36 million in other damages.

“Money will never solve all my problems,” Freeman told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Washington after the verdict. “I will never be able to return to the house I call home. I will always have to be careful where I go and who I choose to share my name with. I miss my home. “I miss my neighbors and I miss my name.”

Giuliani did not appear to show any emotion when the verdict was read after about 10 hours of deliberations. Moss and Freeman hugged their attorneys after the jury left the courtroom and did not look at Giuliani when he walked out with his attorney.

The former New York City mayor vowed to appeal, telling reporters that “the absurdity of the figure simply underscores the absurdity of the entire procedure.”

“It will reverse so quickly it will make your head spin, and the absurd number that just came in will actually help,” he said.

It’s unclear whether Giuliani will ever be able to pay the staggering amount. He had already been showing signs of financial strain as he defends himself against costly lawsuits and investigations stemming from his representation of Trump. In September, his former lawyer sued him, alleging that Giuliani had paid only a fraction of the nearly $1.6 million in legal fees he racked up.

His lawyer in the defamation case told the jury that the compensation the women sought “would be the end of Mr. Giuliani.”

Giuliani had already been found responsible in the case and previously admitted in court documents that he falsely accused the women of election fraud. Still, the former mayor continued to repeat his baseless accusations about women in comments to reporters outside the Washington, D.C., courthouse this week.

Giuliani’s lawyer acknowledged that his client was wrong, but insisted that Giuliani was not entirely responsible for the vitriol the women faced. The defense attempted to place much of the blame on a right-wing website that posted surveillance video of the two women counting votes.

Giuliani’s defense rested Thursday morning without calling a single witness after the former mayor changed course and decided not to take the stand. Giuliani’s attorney had told jurors in his opening statement that they would hear from his client. But after Giuliani’s comments outside court, the judge prohibited him from stating in testimony that his conspiracy theories were correct.

The sentence adds to the growing financial and legal danger for Giuliani, who was among the most vocal defenders of Trump’s false claims of election fraud that are now a key part of the criminal cases against the former president.

Giuliani still faces his biggest test yet: fighting criminal charges in the Georgia case that accuses Trump and 18 others of working to subvert the results of the 2020 election, won by Democrat Joe Biden, in that state. . Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and characterized the case as politically motivated.

Jurors in the defamation case heard recordings of Giuliani falsely accusing election workers of stuffing ballots into suitcases, counting them multiple times and tampering with voting machines. Trump also repeated the conspiracy theories through his social media accounts. Lawyers for Moss and Freeman, who are black, also played audio recordings of the graphic and racist threats the women received for the jury.

On the witness stand, Moss and Freeman described fearing for their lives as hate messages poured in. Freeman described strangers banging on her door and said they fled her home after people came with bullhorns and the FBI told her she wasn’t safe. Moss told the jury she tried to change her appearance, she rarely leaves the house and suffers panic attacks.

“Our greatest hope is that no one, no poll worker, no voter, no school board member or anyone else experiences anything like what we went through,” Moss told reporters after the verdict. “You all matter and you are all important.”

Defense attorney Joseph Sibley had told jurors they should compensate the women for what they are owed, but urged them to “remember that this is a great man.”

An attorney for Moss and Freeman, in his closing argument, highlighted how Giuliani has continued to repeat the false conspiracy theory that workers interfered in the November 2020 presidential election. Attorney Michael Gottlieb played a video of Giuliani outside the courthouse on Monday, in which Giuliani falsely claimed the women were “engaged in changing votes.” Giuliani continued to press false election claims even after the verdict, telling reporters, “I know that a president was imposed on my country through fraud.”

“Mr. Giuliani has proven time and time again that he will not take our clients’ names out of his mouth,” Gottlieb said. “The facts will not stop him. He says he has no regrets and is telegraphing that he will do this again. Believe him “

The judge overseeing the election workers’ lawsuit had already ordered Giuliani and his business entities to pay tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees. In holding Giuliani responsible, the judge ruled that the former mayor paid “only lip service” about fulfilling his legal obligations while attempting to portray himself as the victim in the case.

This story is from The Associated Press. Alanna Durkin Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman contributed from Washington.