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

Wiping away tears, Ruby Freeman described being forced to leave her house for two months -- and ultimately having to move out -- because of the threats she received after she was falsely accused of manipulating ballots.

Freeman said she was advised to leave her home by the FBI. She then stayed in different Airbnbs.

"I couldn't stay at home," Freeman said. "I was just too scared and my neighbors were having to watch out for me."

Freeman sobbed as she recounted how she lost the ability to use her name in her new home. She said she is too scared to introduce herself to her neighbors.

"I have a home but I can't do anything," Freeman said.

Then-President Donald Trump invoked Ruby Freeman's name more than a dozen times in his infamous phone call to Georgia officials on Jan. 2, 2021, when Trump implored Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to win him the state.

After an audio recording of the call was later made public, Freeman described hearing her name come out of the mouth of the "most powerful person on Earth," as her attorney characterized Trump.

"Where's Ruby?" Trump could be heard asking Raffensperger, referring to an expression that was then trending online.

"I just felt like, 'Really?'" Freeman testified. "The president, talking about me? Me? How mean, how evil."

"I just was devastated," she said. "It made me feel like, you don't care that I'm a real person."

Jurors were shown a smattering of the racially charged threats Ruby Freeman received after video of her and her daughter counting ballots at State Farm Arena on election night circulated online.

The emails flooded her inbox on the night of Dec. 3, 2020, with several invoking lynching and references to the Ku Klux Klan.

One email, from an account called Grand Wizard with the email name "kkk" said, "Safest place for you right now is in prison. Or you will swing from the trees."

Another suggested the government hang her and her daughter from the "Capitol dome," saying, "I pray that I will be sitting close enough to hear your necks snap!"

Several of the messages accused her of being a traitor or "SCUM."

"I received so many on my phone that at one point my phone crashed," Freeman testified. "I felt horrible. I felt terrorized. I was scared … people are coming to kill me. They have my address, they have my phone number, they know my name."

Freeman testified that two days later, on Dec. 5, 2020, people began to show up at her house and she was forced to call the authorities.

While on the phone with police, Freeman said people were "banging" on her door.

"Not only am I getting phone calls and emails and stuff, now you're actually coming to the house," Freeman testified. "I was scared."

When Rudy Giuliani accused Ruby Freeman of "surreptitiously" passing her daughter a USB drive while the two were counting ballots on Election Day at State Farm Arena -- a central tenet of his false claims about the two women -- what he actually saw, according to Freeman, was something far less sinister: a ginger mint.

As Freeman took the stand, her attorney entered a ginger mint into evidence -- and Freeman passed the judge a ginger mint, too.

"I'm going to use this," Judge Beryl Howell said.

Freeman explained that she always has the candies with her. She passes them out to clients of her clothing boutique and those in need.

"I felt that it was healthy," she testified.

Freeman, who always went by "Lady Ruby," said she can no longer use her nickname publicly or in business.

"I can't use my name anymore, so I'm not Lady Ruby," she said as her voice cracked. "Sometimes I don't know who I am."