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

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

A visibly upset Shaye Moss described what happened on Dec. 4, 2020 -- the day her boss informed her about the deluge of "nasty, hateful, violent" messages directed at her from online users accusing her of election fraud.

Moss said when her supervisor summoned her to his office, she thought she might be in line for a promotion. Colleagues smiled and gave her a thumbs up as she waded through their cubicles, she recalled.

Instead, Moss testified, she was shown social media posts accusing her of manipulating ballots.

"I am shown these videos, these lies, everything that's been going on that I had no clue about," Moss recalled. "I was confused, I was immediately fearful."

After returning to her desk, Moss said she "couldn't concentrate" for the rest of the day.

Taking the witness stand, Shaye Moss described the pride she felt as an election supervisor in Fulton County -- the position she held on Election Day in 2020.

Moss began her career in elections in 2012 as a temporary worker in the Fulton County elections office mail room. Five years later, she said she secured a promotion to permanent work.

"I worked really hard for that position. I was so excited I literally dropped to my knees and cried," Moss said. "It was like winning the golden ticket with Willy Wonka. I was so proud of myself."

Moss said she felt proud to work in elections and took particular delight in helping the elderly and others who found it difficult to cast their ballots. She said her grandmother inspired her to pursue a career in elections.

"No, I did not like my job -- because I loved my job," Moss recalled. "It would make my grandmother proud … my grandmother enjoyed telling her friends … that her grandbaby runs the election."

Two state investigators who examined allegations that Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss conspired to manipulate ballots on Election Day explained in video depositions how those claims were probed and found to be untrue.

Frank Braun and Frances Watson, both investigators with the Georgia Secretary of State at the time, explained that Freeman, Moss and their colleagues returned to State Farm Arena late on Nov. 3, 2020, after the secretary extended hours for counting ballots, to help expedite the process -- not, as Rudy Giuliani and others suggested, to rig votes.

"There was no evidence that suggested they did anything wrong, except show up to work and work hard," Braun said in his video deposition.

Watson, the chief investigator at the time, said that Giuliani's remarks about manipulated ballots at State Farm Arena were "not accurate."