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.


0

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.


Giuliani was warned by judge about making additional claims

Prior to the unexpected announcement this morning that Rudy Giuliani will not testify in his own defense, the former mayor had repeatedly told reporters that he looked forward to presenting his side of the story at trial.

"When I testify, the whole story will be definitively clear that what I said was true, and that, whatever happened to them, which is unfortunate about other people overreacting -- everything I said about them is true," Giuliani told ABC News' Terry Moran on Monday.

When court reconvened the following morning, on Tuesday, a visibly frustrated Judge Beryl Howell admonished Giuliani, suggesting his remarks "could support another defamation claim."

She reiterated the court's prior ruling that Giuliani's allegations against Freeman and Moss were untrue and cautioned him against raising arguments that she has already ruled on.


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.