Rudy Giuliani, the long-standing associate of former President Donald Trump, has been ordered to pay close to $150 million to two Georgia poll workers after making false claims about them tampering with election votes in 2020.
Giuliani was found guilty of making defamatory claims about poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea Moss. According to BBC News, the penalty followed a four-day trial, and on Dec. 15 an eight-person jury ordered a hefty payment of $148 million on behalf of the victims. Giuliani was ordered to pay $20 million to each woman for defamation directly. Both Moss and Freeman were awarded $16 million for emotional distress, and the pair willsplit a payment of $75 million for punitive damages.
Moss and Freeman originally sought less than $40 million in their original lawsuit, but the courts found Giuliani, who had been Trump’s personal lawyer for years, responsible for much more.
Despite the weighty payments ordered for Giuliani, he expressed no remorse over what he had done. He told reporters after the trial, “I don’t regret a damn thing. Honestly, I didn’t believe [testifying] would do any good.” He continued to affirm that he would be appealing the “absurd penalty.”
Before the jury returned with the award amount, his lawyers urged them
to consider the damages they ordered carefully. His legal team acknowledged that Giuliani did defame Moss and Freeman but claimed he wasn’t as “malicious” as the mother-daughter duo made him out to be.On the other hand, Freeman and Moss’ lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, said that during the three days of testimony, the jury had only “experienced a sliver of the unspeakable horror that [Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss] suffered,” and a steep financial penalty was more than necessary in order to correct Giuliani and also to “send a message to any other powerful figure with a platform.”
Freeman recounted to the Wash
ington, D.C., courtroom the traumatic incident of having to leave her home after a group of Trump supporters bombarded her house and the FBI warned her that she was in active danger from Trump’s supporters.Freeman said, “I took it as though they were going to hang me with their ropes on my street. I was scared. I didn’t know if they were coming to kill me.”
She described how she was left completely isolated and in danger after Giuliani shared a video of Moss and her online and falsely accused them of tampering with ballots.
“Money will not solve all of my problems,” said Freeman. “I can’t move home; I will always have to be careful… I miss my home, I miss my neighbors, and I miss my name.”
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