Giuliani defamation trial live updates: 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.


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Plaintiffs to call expert on reputation repair

Day 3 of the trial is scheduled to begin with a witness deposition video, finishing up the series of deposition videos that was played in court yesterday.

Plaintiffs' attorney are then expected to call an expert witness to the stand to testify about the impact of Giuliani's statements.

The testimony is expected to address the estimated cost to repair the damage done to Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman's reputations.


Giuliani refrains from commenting on case

After court was adjourned for the day, Rudy Giuliani told reporters outside court that he would not comment on the case after the judge slammed the remarks he made after court Monday.

"I'm not going to discuss the case anymore because it seemed to get the judge annoyed," he told reporters.

Court will resume Wednesday morning.


Court adjourns for the day

Following Shaye Moss' testimony and the playing of several video depositions, Day 2 of the trial adjourned for the day.

When court resumes on Wednesday, Michael Gottlieb, an attorney for Freeman and Moss, said he plans to show one final deposition video of poll observer Pamela Michelle Branton.

Plaintiffs' attorneys also plan to call an expert witness to testify about the impacts of Giuliani's false accusations, according to court papers filed in the case.


Attorneys play video depositions from Giuliani aides

Attorneys for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss played excerpts from previously recorded video depositions with Trump associate Bernie Kerik and attorneys Christina Bobb, and Jenna Ellis in part to demonstrate Giuliani's leading role in efforts to uncover evidence of systemic election fraud.

They never found it.

Kerik, the former police commissioner in New York City, described a document in the team's legal playbook, which included a section about Freeman. Bobb, a onetime attorney for then-President Trump, described the makeup of Giuliani's legal team.

In the recording of Ellis, a former Trump attorney, she repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as attorneys for the two women peppered her with questions about her work with Giuliani in the aftermath of the election.


'I want to receive some type of justice,' Moss testifies

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."