Listen 10 min
Share
Comment on this story Comment
Add to your saved stories
Save
A federal jury ordered Rudy Giuliani on Friday to pay $148 million to two election workers who sued him for defamation, asserting that the former attorney for Donald Trump exposed them to a life-altering torrent of abuse and trauma by promoting false claims that they stole the 2020 election from the former president in Georgia.
Keeping up with politics is easy with The 5-Minute Fix Newsletter, in your inbox weekdays. ArrowRight
The panel of five women and three men in Washington deliberated for more than nine hours before entering a stunning penalty that was more than three times the $48 million sought by the workers, in the first large judgment against an individual in Trump’s orbit for propagating the myth that vote fraud tipped the election to President Biden.
The damages verdict came in a defamation lawsuit filed against Giuliani, 79, by Fulton County, Ga., election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, whom Trump and others on the former president’s campaign and legal teams falsely accused of manipulating the absentee ballot count in Atlanta.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
“Today is a good day,” Freeman said, standing outside the courthouse with Moss after a jury awarded the mother and daughter pair $75 million in punitive and $73 million in compensatory damages for defamation and emotional distress.
Their attorneys in closing arguments had urged jurors to “send a message” to Giuliani and others in public life that the “facts matter.” On Friday Moss added, “Giuliani was not the only one who spread lies about us, and others must be held accountable, too.”
The jury decision marks a stunning downfall for Giuliani, after his attorney warned jurors that a penalty of tens of millions of dollars could mark “the end” for the former New York mayor and onetime Manhattan U.S. prosecutor, whose law license was earlier suspended over his election falsehoods. And it puts the defiant, debt-threatened Giuliani near the top of a long list of Trump advisers and news media outlets to face legal consequences for amplifying his false allegations. In April, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems almost $780 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that the network damaged the voting machine company’s reputation by peddling false claims that its equipment switched votes from Trump to Biden.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
Dominion and another voting machine company, Smartmatic, have separate lawsuits pending against media companies, Giuliani, former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and others. And Trump faces lawsuits for damages from Democratic lawmakers and Capitol Police officers for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Giuliani, however, is one of the first Trump aides to face a jury verdict, a potentially worrying sign for him as he faces criminal charges in Georgia accusing him of related efforts to overturn Biden’s victory there. Giuliani is also described as an uncharged “Co-conspirator 1” in Trump’s indictment on federal charges in Washington for obstruction of the 2020 election.
Giuliani was unrepentant after the ruling, telling reporters outside the courthouse, “The absurdity of the number underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding,” and adding falsely that “I have not been allowed to offer one single piece of evidence in defense, of which I have a lot.”
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell had found Giuliani liable by default earlier this year, based on his own admissions and his refusal to turn over to the women’s attorneys evidence in the case and relevant information such as his net worth and the size of his radio, YouTube and other online audiences.
That left jurors at his week-long trial only to decide the penalty for one count each of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy based on 16 defamatory statements against the workers. A plaintiffs’ expert testified that the false claims were seen 35 million times online and in media reports beginning in December 2020, and the women took the stand this week describing racist and vicious attacks they suffered after Giuliani’s comments. Giuliani declined to contest the facts of the case and did not testify in his own defense, despite publicly saying that he would.
In closing arguments, attorney Michael Gottlieb urged jurors to remind powerful people that they have “no right to offer defenseless civil servants up to a virtual mob” or to seek profit and fame “by assassinating the character of ordinary people.”
Giuliani repeated his attacks against the two workers outside the courthouse Monday, while defense attorney Joseph D. Sibley IV told jurors in closing arguments three days later that his client did not testify out of respect for the women, who “have been through enough.”
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
Sibley argued to the jury that Giuliani alone should not face a “catastrophic” penalty when he did not intend or author any of the threatening or racist remarks made to Freeman and Moss, and said the election workers were victims “of a controversy involving a lot of people, not just Rudy Giuliani.”
“Mr. Giuliani is a good man,” Sibley said, even if “he hasn’t exactly helped himself with some of the things that happened in the past few days.”
In contrast to his in-court defense, outside of court after the verdict, Giuliani continued to portray himself as a victim of a legal system “weaponized” by political opponents, similar to arguments Trump has made. Giuliani said he was “quite confident” that the case would be reversed “before a fair tribunal” on appeal, adding, “The election of 2020 has to be exposed because if not, our country will no longer be a democracy.”
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
Someone in the crowd shouted moments later: “You’re a liar, Rudy. You’ll die in prison.”
Skip to end of carousel
Ongoing investigations involving Donald Trump arrow left arrow right
Donald Trump is facing historic legal scrutiny for a former president. He has been indicted on 78 felony charges in two federal cases and one state case and is under investigation elsewhere. He has denied all wrongdoing. Here is a list of the key probes and where they stand.
Manhattan district attorney’s investigation
Trump has been indicted on 34 felony charges following an investigation by District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) of business matters involving Trump, including his alleged role in hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. The trial has been scheduled for March 2024.
Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation
Trump has been indicted on 40 felony charges after FBI agents found more than 100 classified documents during a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on Aug. 8 as part of a criminal probe into possible mishandling of classified information. The trial has been scheduled for May 2024.
Justice Dept. criminal probe of Jan. 6
Trump has been indicted on four felony charges. Prosecutors are focusing on the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and whether Trump or his aides conspired to obstruct Congress’s certification of the 2020 election or committed fraud to block the peaceful transfer of power. Prosecutor Jack Smith is also overseeing the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
Georgia election results investigation
Former president Donald Trump and 18 others were criminally charged in connection with efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia. The indictment follows a 2？-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D). The grand jury issued arrest warrants for those charged, and they have until noon on Aug. 25 to voluntarily surrender.
Lawsuit over Trump business practices in New York
Attorney General Letitia James (D) filed a lawsuit Sept. 21 against Trump, some of his children and the Trump Organization, accusing them of flagrantly manipulating property valuations to get tax breaks and better terms on loans and insurance policies. A trial is scheduled for October.
1 / 6
End of carousel
According to trial evidence, Giuliani led a reckless, desperate effort to persuade state lawmakers and Congress to overturn the election in part based on misleading security footage of the two women, summarized in a December 2020 strategic communications plan for Trump’s legal team. Giuliani accused the pair — Moss a full-time election worker and Freeman a temporary one — of seeking to stuff vote-counting machines with “suitcases” of fake ballots and a thumb drive of electronic data after shooing away observers.
See the verdict form
None of the accusations against the mother and daughter were true, a Georgia secretary of state investigation found. The supposed suitcases at State Farm Arena, where the women were working, were regular ballot boxes, and the purported USB drive was a ginger mint.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
On Dec. 7, 2020, Giuliani highlighted the Georgia video in a text responding to a Trump adviser’s request for the “best examples of ‘election fraud’ that we’ve alleged that’s super easy to explain.”
Share this article Share
“Doesn’t necessarily have to be proven,” the text went on, “but does need to be easy to understand.”
Giuliani went on to boast that his claims had gone “viral.” And Trump referred to the video in meetings with top Justice Department officials and in a phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, during which the president asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.”
Trump boasted to Raffensperger that Freeman’s “reputation is done — she’s known all over the internet” for fraud and the meme “Where’s Ruby?”
Story continues below advertisement
On the witness stand, Moss, 39, testified how she quit a job as a $39,000-a-year election worker, which she had first likened to winning Willy Wonka’s golden ticket, and Freeman, 64, said she gave up her dreams of a brick-and-mortar business because of her notoriety. Giuliani’s “crazy lies” turned their lives upside down, Moss said, flooding their phones and social media accounts with what their attorneys called a racist and vicious “campaign of defamation and emotional terror” and leaving Moss with depression and anxiety disorders.
Advertisement
Strangers accused the women of treason and threatened to hang them, including one caller who proposed it be done close enough to the U.S. Capitol “for people to hear their necks snap,” according to her testimony and recordings played in court. Harassers sent pizza deliveries to Moss’s home that she was expected to pay for, one addressed to a person whose first and last name sounded like the n-word racial epithet.
“I was afraid for my life. I literally felt someone would be coming to hang me, and there was nothing anyone could do about it,” Moss testified.
Story continues below advertisement
Plaintiffs’ attorneys led by Gottlieb, Von A. DuBose and John Langford said Giuliani and co-conspirators made the two civil servants’ names “synonymous with crimes, cheating and fraud” in an unprecedented media campaign to overturn the election.
Rudy Giuliani's involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election may have put him in insurmountable legal trouble. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
Moss said she began to feel like a pariah at work, even though lies about her had been debunked. She changed her hair and physical appearance, while her ninth-grade son failed all his final exams after the attacks. She and Freeman moved their homes and gave up some of their dreams, they testified.
Advertisement
Freeman testified that she was an independent business person living in her home of 20 years when Giuliani publicly shared security video of her wearing a “Lady Ruby” T-shirt, her chosen nickname and brand for her traveling clothing boutique.
“You are dead,” one person wrote her on social media. “Your family and you are now criminals and traitors to the union. BLM wants the cops to go away, good they are in the way of my ropes and your tree.”
Freeman told the jury that, in addition to suffering, she lost her brand and reputation.
“That’s the only thing in life, the only thing you have is your name,” she testified through tears. “My life is just messed up, all because of somebody putting me out there on blast, tweeting my name out.”
The damages verdict, if upheld, cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, legal analysts said. The penalty adds to the serious legal threats facing Giuliani, a 2008 Republican presidential candidate who branded himself “America’s mayor” after leading New York City following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In addition to his pending state prosecution with Trump in Georgia, he and one of his lawyers are being sued by Hunter Biden for allegedly mishandling the presidential son’s laptop, and that lawyer is accusing Giuliani of not paying legal bills. Giuliani also faces a suit from a former employee accusing him of wage theft and sexual harassment. His law license has been suspended in New York in disciplinary proceedings, so he can no longer practice.
Giuliani has pleaded not guilty in the Georgia criminal cases and denied all claims of wrongdoing in all cases.
Still, Giuliani even on the first day of trial renewed his accusations against Freeman and Moss, in what the judge warned could be grounds for a fresh defamation claim.
“Everything I said about them is true,” Giuliani told reporters in media footage played to jurors by attorneys for Freeman and Moss in closing arguments. Giuliani added: “Of course I don’t regret it. … They were engaged in changing votes.”
A co-defendant dismissed earlier from the lawsuit, One America News, entered a settlement with Moss and Freeman and reported that Georgia officials concluded “there was no widespread voter fraud by elections workers who counted ballots at the State Farm Arena.”
Amy Gardner contributed to this report.
More on the Trump Georgia case The latest: Four of Trump’s co-defendants have pleaded guilty in the Georgia election case. Trump previously entered a plea of not guilty. The Washington Post published details of recorded statements given to prosecutors by the co-defendants who accepted plea deals in the case, offering previously undisclosed information about the effort by Trump and his allies to reverse his defeat.
The charges: Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act. Read the full text of the Georgia indictment. Here’s a breakdown of the charges against Trump and a list of everyone else who was charged in the Georgia case. Trump now faces 91 total charges in four criminal cases.
The case: Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) has been investigating whether Trump and his associates broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. Here’s what happens next in the Georgia case.
Historic mug shot: Trump surrendered at the Fulton County Jail on charges that he illegally conspired to overturn his 2020 election loss. Authorities released his booking record — including his height and weight — and mug shot.
Show more
ChevronDown
Share
Comments
Loading...
Subscribe to comment and get the full experience. Choose your plan →