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

Under cross-examination by Giuliani attorney Joseph Sibley, Shaye Moss was asked how she could be sure that it was his client's remarks that inspired throngs of strangers to level racist and vile threats against her and her family.

Moss said those strangers "were parroting his exact words."

She testified that right-wing news outlet Gateway Pundit and the Trump campaign used language similar to Giuliani's in smearing her.

"It was like the torch for the Olympics," she said. "They pass it from person to person to person."

Shaye Moss returned to the witness stand after the midday break to be questioned by Giuliani attorney Joseph Sibley, who asked her about her efforts to rehabilitate her reputation -- probing what steps she has taken to mend her name online.

Moss said she had pays a service $140 per year to monitor her name online and protect her identity, but that "it's incredibly difficult" to repair her reputation "when powerful people keep spewing lies about us."

"How could you work in law if people were saying, like, that you were a horrible lawyer?" Moss asked Sibley.

"You'd be surprised," Sibley quipped.

Asked how much money she believes she is owed for Giuliani's lies, Moss said, "I'm relying on the experts."

"I want to vindicate myself," she said. "I want to receive some type of justice."

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.