Giuliani defamation trial: Jury awards election workers nearly $150 million
The amount is three times as much as plaintiffs were seeking.
Following a week-long trial, a federal jury has ordered former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to pay nearly $150 million to former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss for defaming them with false accusations that the mother and daughter committed election fraud while the two were counting ballots in Georgia's Fulton County on Election Day in 2020.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in August awarded a default judgment to the two women, leaving the trial to determine the full scope of the damages and penalties. Freeman and Moss were seeking between $15.5 million and an amount in the $40 million range.
Top headlines:
- Jury awards Freeman, Moss $75 million apiece
- Freeman, Moss entitled to $24M each, attorney argues
- Giuliani won't testify, attorney says
- Freeman tearfully testifies she left her home due to threats
- Fixing plaintiffs' reputations will cost up to $47M, says expert
- Moss, through tears, describes life after Giuliani's accusations
- Georgia investigators dispel election fraud claims
- Judge blasts Giuliani for 'additional defamatory' remarks
- Expert describes racist content 'on a level we don't see'
Freeman, Moss entitled to $24M each, attorney argues
Michael Gottlieb, an attorney for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, asked jurors to award $24 million to each women -- a total cost to Giuliani of $48 million -- during his closing argument.
Gottlieb warned jurors that Joseph Sibley, an attorney for Giuliani, would call that sum an "outrageous and unfair amount."
"But it isn't," Gottlieb said. That figure is "not even close" to the reputational damage prompted by Giuliani's defamatory statements.
"This isn't a mathematical calculation," Gottlieb said. Jurors must "determine in dollars and cents" seemingly arbitrary factors such as the two women's "standing in the community" and "reputational harm."
Gottlieb said Freeman and Moss have experienced “what it’s like to become the targets of some of the most powerful men on the planet" and that they continue to know "full-well those men are still out there, saying the same things and making the same calls to action.”
In closing argument, lawyer uses Giuliani's own words against him
In closing arguments, plaintiffs' attorney Michael Gottlieb used Rudy Giuliani's own words against him, playing video of the former mayor's exchange with ABC News' Terry Moran outside of court on Monday.
Giuliani told Moran, "Everything I said about them is true" and that the women "were engaged in changing votes," referring to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
"That is a fiction," Gottlieb told jurors. "And it ends today."
Gottlieb also cited a passage from Giuliani's best-selling book, "Leadership," in which Giuliani said his father instructed him from a young age not to bully or attack vulnerable people.
"Those are wise words," said Gottlieb. "If only Mr. Giuliani had listened."
Defense rests its case without calling any witnesses
When jurors entered the courtroom, Trump attorney Joseph Sibley rested his case without presenting any witnesses or entering any records into evidence.
An attorney for Freeman and Moss then began his closing argument.
Judge assails Giuliani's case
Judge Howell criticized key arguments presented at trial by Rudy Giuliani's attorney before jurors entered the courtroom this morning, reiterating her prior rulings that the former mayor's rhetoric about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss was "totally false."
Howell was responding to a last-ditch effort by Giuliani attorney Joseph Sibley to seek a ruling that plaintiffs had failed to meet the burden of proving their case, known as a Rule 50 motion.
Howell denied that motion, and in the process took aim at arguments core to Sibley's case -- as well as comments Giuliani had made outside of court.
"The powerful testimony of these Georgia officials demonstrated again and again and again" that those allegations were "totally false," Howell said of earlier testimony from two Georgia investigators that there was no evidence of election fraud.
Freeman and Moss organized "no highfalutin strategy like the one Giuliani" coordinated on behalf of former President Donald Trump, the judge added.
Howell took particular issue with Sibley's attempt to claim that no amount of money could change the mind of those who believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Sibley compared them to "flat-Earthers," who believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the Earth is flat.