Giuliani defamation trial: Jury awards election workers nearly $150 million

It wasn't just Moss and Freeman who bore the brunt of Giuliani's false fraud accusations, Shaye Moss testified. Her grandmother and son also suffered after the former mayor falsely accused Moss and Freeman by name.

"I feel like it's my fault. Maybe if I was satisfied being in the mail room ... then maybe it would not have happened," Moss said regarding her promotion to election worker.

Moss said her 16-year-old son struggled in school after being exposed to racist threats against their family -- and went from a comic-obsessed "bookworm" to flunking the ninth grade.

"Racism is real. And it comes out," Moss recalled telling him. "I felt like the worst mom ever to allow him to have to hear this, to experience this day after day after day."

Moss also said she harbors guilt for the treatment of her grandmother. Strangers would repeatedly send pizzas to her house under fake, racist names, Moss testified. The delivery person would expect payment upon arrival, she said.

"My grandmother has lived through all this racist crap. I mean, we're from Georgia ... miles and miles of cotton fields as we drive to the beach," Moss said. "It's history, but we have to go through this."

In emotional testimony, Shaye Moss described how, following the 2020 election, her mental health spiraled out of control over the course of 2021 -- a period during which she said her life fell into a rhythm of "Cry, eat, sleep. Cry, eat, sleep."

"I'm like a hermit crab now. Obviously, I look totally different," she said. "I've gained 70 pounds. I realize I stress-eat."

"I don't trust anyone," she added.

After seeking therapy, she told her therapist about her nightmares -- that a mob would arrive at her house "with nooses, with pitchforks and signs," and that her son would find her hanging.

"The look of shock on [the therapist's] face, the look of disbelief -- it kind of scared me," she said. "I felt bad for releasing all that on the therapist."

Moss says she was diagnosed with "acute stress disorder." Months later, she met with a different therapist who made a more serious diagnosis: "major depressive disorder with acute distress," Moss said.

One interlude from the aftermath of the 2020 election demonstrates how Moss' career prospects deteriorated, she testified.

Moss said she felt so disillusioned with election work by mid-2021 that she sought work elsewhere. She applied for a job at a Chick-fil-A restaurant and secured an interview.

"I was dressed up. I had my notebook with my resume. I was excited, I was ready," Moss said. The interview "went great," she said, even though she realized that, without relevant experience, she would be asked to do menial tasks.

"I had made up my mind that, oh well, I'll have to start at the bottom," she testified. "And if I can work my way up at [voter] registration, I can work my way up here."

Before leaving, however, the interviewer showed her an article on his laptop and said, "Tell me about this. Is this you? Is this true?"

The article featured an image of her face with the word "Fraud" plastered across it.

"The more he was talking, the more I just tuned it out," Moss said. "I was so shocked, I was so embarrassed … I just had to leave. I just left."

Shaye Moss felt dejected and fearful after Rudy Giuliani's defamatory statements and accusations about her proliferated online -- prompting the veteran election worker to change her appearance and leave her job.

John Langford, an attorney for Moss, displayed emails and messages she received on social media in late 2020, as her name circulated online in right-wing media. One read, "Be glad it's 2020 and not 1920."

The chilling message, which she said made her "afraid for my life," prompted her to assume a new physical identity.

"I went into my hair salon and I asked my stylist to make it so the same person she saw walk in here is not the person who leaves," Moss recalled.

Her stylist, she said, "dyed it a strawberry blond color." A selfie Moss took the following day showed her with a "puffy face from crying all night."

Though her hair changed, Moss said she returned to work after "the worst Christmas" of her life, determined to return to normalcy. "My goal was still to make sure that everything was ready for our next election, that everything ran smoothly," she testified.

Instead, she recalled, "Things ain't never returned to normal."

Moss left the Fulton County elections office in April 2022 after she was passed over for a promotion. "It felt like a slap in the face," she said, because she sensed that her superiors thought it would look bad for the county.

"I wanted to retire a county worker, like my grandma -- make her proud, make my mom proud -- but..." she said, trailing off in tears.

Rudy Giuliani, seated at the defense table, showed little emotion as Moss wept on the witness stand. Leaning with his elbow on the table, the former mayor took intermittent notes as she testified.

-ABC News' Lucien Bruggeman and Laura Romero