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'
Ruby Freeman takes the stand
Ruby Freeman, the mother of Shaye Moss and her former co-worker in the Fulton County elections office, has taken the witness stand.
Freeman introduced herself to the jury as "Lady Ruby" as questioning got underway.
Giuliani's unfounded claims about the two women prompted a deluge of threats that ultimately drove Freeman from her suburban Atlanta home, she told ABC News' Terry Moran in an exclusive interview last year.
Giuliani lawyer scrutinizes expert's credibility
Giuliani attorney Joseph Sibley scrutinized the credibility of the communications expert whose report on the reach of Giuliani's defamatory statements underpins the plaintiffs' request for tens of millions of dollars in damages.
Dr. Ashlee Humphreys, an expert witness for plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, fielded questions about the methodology she used to compile a report on the reputational harm that was done to the mother and daughter. Sibley sought to poke holes in that research as part of an effort to cast doubt on her findings.
"Reputation repair campaigns such as this are common," Humphreys said in response.
Sibley also highlighted Humphreys' participation as an expert witness in other cases, including in the defamation lawsuit filed against former President Trump by the writer E. Jean Carroll, and a case involving the conservative media outlet Gateway Pundit.
Noting that her past expert witness work exclusively targeted right-wing figures, Sibley asked, "Is there a reason for that?"
"No," she replied.
Fixing plaintiffs' reputations will cost up to $47M, says expert
Communications expert Dr. Ashlee Humphreys, testifying for the plaintiffs, estimated that the cost to repair the reputations of Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman is between $17.8 million and $47.4 million.
Humphreys said that her assessment found that Giuliani's defamatory statements about the two election workers had a "significant, negative and long-lasting" impact on Moss and Freeman's reputations.
"To repair reputational harm is not easy," Humphreys said.
A repair campaign for Moss and Freeman would include circulating statements in multiple media outlets, hiring influencers, and running media advertisements over a long period, Humphreys testified.
Plaintiffs' expert says accusations reached wide audience
Dr. Ashlee Humphreys, an expert in sociology and communications, took the stand for the plaintiffs to testify about the reach of Giuliani's false election fraud claims online and on social media.
Humphreys said that prior to December 3, 2020, "there was practically no search traffic" for Ruby Freeman. After that day, Humphreys said there was a "dramatic increase over a period of months."
Humphreys said some of the search terms between December 2020 and January 2021 were "Ruby Freeman arrested," "Ruby Freeman fraud" and "Ruby Freeman FBI."
During her testimony, Humphreys walked through her analysis of the total number of times content had been displayed to uses, known as "impressions." Her impression analysis of several videos and posts by Giuliani and former President Trump included a Dec. 23, 2020, podcast in which Giuliani mentioned Moss and Freeman, which Humphreys said received between 584,855 to 807,751 impressions.
An advertising post by the Trump campaign that falsely claimed Freeman and Moss stuffed ballots in suitcases received between 8 million and 18.2 impressions, Humphreys said.
Some of the statements Humphreys said she found in her research were from Giuliani's "strategic communications plan" to challenge the election results, which included references to Moss and Freeman.
Damages sought are 'civil equivalent of death penalty,' says attorney
Joseph Sibley, an attorney for Rudy Giuliani, implored jurors to withhold judgment of his client and consider a "fair and proportionate" monetary penalty when the trial concludes, framing the $43 million sought by Freeman and Moss as a "truly incredible" figure.
"What the plaintiffs' counsel are asking for in this case is the civil equivalent of a death penalty," Sibley told jurors in brief opening remarks.
Sibley, in making his case to the jury, ceding before arguments even began that Giuliani made defamatory comments about Freeman and Moss -- but he refuted the notion that his comments led to the abuse that followed.
"There's really no question that these plaintiffs were harmed," Sibley said. "They're good people, they didn't deserve what happened to them."
But Sibley urged jurors to consider only "what can actually be attributed to Mr. Giuliani."
"He never promoted violence against these women, never made racist statements about them," Sibley said of Giuliani. "That was other random people."