A federal jury on Friday ordered former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to pay a total of $148 million to two former Georgia poll workers who he defamed with his false comments about the 2020 presidential election.
Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, sued Giuliani, saying he defamed them with his claims that they carried out a fake ballot processing scheme when they served as election workers for Fulton County in 2020.
A federal judge found the former New York City mayor liable for defaming Freeman and Moss earlier this year and tasked an eight-man jury with deciding how much Giuliani would have to pay the pair in compensatory and punitive damages.
Freeman asked for compensatory damages of $23.9 million, and Moss asked for $24.7 million for defamation and an unspecified amount for other damages.
The jury awarded $75 million in punitive damages for both Freeman and Moss, as well as more than $16 million to Freeman in compensatory damages for defamation, nearly $17 million to Moss in compensatory damages for defamation and $20 million each in compensatory damages for emotional distress.
Freeman and Moss said Giuliani’s claims led them to receive racist threats.
After the verdict was read in court, Giuliani told reporters that the threats were “abominable” and “deplorable,” but he claimed he had evidence to support his false claims about the 2020 election.
“Everything I said about them is true,” Giuliani told reporters earlier this week. “They were engaged in changing the votes.”
Giuliani said he plans to appeal the judgment.
Giuliani and the Gateway Pundit identified Moss and Freeman in security camera videos of the ballot processing facility and falsely claimed they were adding fake ballots to the vote count to boost Joe Biden and that they had inserted a USB drive into election machines.
While the Georgia secretary of state found the claims about Freeman and Moss were “unsubstantiated” and without merit, the pair received hateful, threatening calls, emails, texts and letters.
“Every single aspect of my life has changed,” Moss said. “I’m most scared of my son finding me or my mom hanging in front of our house.”
“I took it as they were gonna cut me up, put me in a trash bag and take me out to my street,” Freeman she said of one threat. “I felt as if I was terrorized.”
Moss said she was passed up for a promotion and lost out on another job because of the fallout from the claims, while Freeman said she had to close her business and sell her house.
Giuliani’s attorney sought to place the blame for the threats on the Gateway Pundit and other media outlets that amplified the story and identified the women.
While Giuliani initially said he planned to testify in his defense, he ultimately failed to take the stand.