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'
Expert describes racist content 'on a level we don't see'
Plaintiffs' first witness in the case is a social media monitor who testified about the deluge of "racist and graphic material" targeting Freeman and Moss that appeared online after Giuliani began accusing them by name.
Regina Scott, a retired Chicago Police Department official who now works as a security and risk analyst, testified that negative mentions about Freeman and Moss surfaced online at a prodigious rate.
A report Scott prepared identified more than 710,000 mentions of Freeman and Moss between November 2020 and May 2023, and 320,000 mentions between Aug. 18, 2023, and Nov. 11, 2023.
"The type of violent and racist and graphic material, that's on a level we don't see at all in our work," Scott said.
-ABC News' Laura Romero
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."
Damage to plaintiffs should cost Giuliani '10s of millions'
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss suffered a "perpetual nightmare," their attorney Michael Gottlieb told the jury during his opening remarks, saying that the damage they suffered warrants an "award in the tens of millions of dollars."
Gottlieb told jurors his clients suffered three types of damages -- reputation, emotional and punitive -- due to Giuliani's "defamation campaign."
In addition to the costs to "repair their reputation," Gottlieb told jurors that Freeman and Moss' award should account for lost wages, forced relocation, security expenses, and more.
-ABC News' Laura Romero
Giuliani used accusers as 'cornerstone' of conspiracy, says lawyer
Rudy Giuliani sought to use Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss "as a cornerstone" of his campaign to denigrate the 2020 presidential election, prompting his followers to turn their ire toward the two election workers, their attorney, Von DuBose, told the jury in his opening remarks.
DuBose described how Giuliani slandered Freeman and Moss to his "massive national audience" and accused the mother and daughter of rigging ballots in President Joe Biden's favor.
"None of that -- none of that -- is true. But the millions of people who heard the lies didn't wait for confirmation," DuBose said. "And the response from those Giuliani called to action was swift. It was racist."
Dubose played audio recordings of several voicemails left on Freeman and Moss' phones after Giuliani targeted them by name, including threats of violence and racist name-calling.
Many of the voicemails cited the USB drive Giuliani falsely told Georgia state legislators that the two were "surreptitiously passing around ... as if they're vials of heroin or cocaine."
Then, DuBose said, "Words turned into action."
"Strange people" showed up at Freeman and Moss' home looking for them, DuBose said, with some attempting to "make citizens' arrests."
"This case is about how Giuliani … made their names a call to action for millions of people who did not want to believe" the results of the 2020 election, DuBose said.
Jury awards Freeman, Moss $75 million apiece
The jury in Rudy Giuliani's defamation case has determined that the former New York City mayor will have pay former election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss approximately $75 million apiece for targeting them with defamatory statements in the aftermath of the 2020 election.