Giuliani, the ex-Trump attorney, was forced to pay $148 million for defaming poll workers
Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Shaye Moss were given more than $16 million each for defamation, $20 million each for mental distress, and $75 million in punitive damages by the eight-member federal jury.
US District Judge Beryl Howell found the 79-year-old former mayor of New York guilty in August of discrediting the poll workers in Fulton County by fabricating election-related lies in 2020 on behalf of the outgoing president, Donald Trump.
Leading Trump’s legal attempts to have the election results overturned, Giuliani published a video of the two in which he falsely accused them of voting fraud and made a number of other unfounded accusations against them.
After the damages award, Moss said to reporters outside the central Washington courthouse that the past few years have been devastating.
The flame that Giuliani lit with those lies and passed to so many others to keep that flame blazing changed every aspect of our lives, our homes, our family, our work, our sense of safety, our mental health, she stated.
The journey does not finish today, she declared. There is still work to be done. We need to hold other people accountable for spreading false information about us, Rudy Giuliani wasn’t the only one.
However, Giuliani called the enormous damages award absurd and informed reporters that he would file an appeal.
A protester holding a placard that said Big Lie stood close to him as he stated, I am quite confident when this case gets before a fair tribunal it’ll be reversed so quickly.
In addition, Giuliani seemed to intensify his unfounded accusations directed at Freeman, 64, and Moss, 39.
I am positive that the remarks I made were appropriate at the time, and they still are, he stated. I just did not have an opportunity to present the evidence that we offered.
In his own defense, Giuliani defended his choice to remain silent, stating that it didn’t seem like it was going to do much to persuade anybody.
Giuliani, who has been charged with racketeering in Georgia along with Trump and other individuals for allegedly plotting to rig the 2020 election results in the state, is facing a variety of legal battles, including the defamation lawsuit.
From 1994 to 2001, Giuliani led New York through the shock of the September 11 attacks and earned the nickname America’s Mayor before accepting a position as Trump’s personal attorney while he was in the White House.
Giuliani’s ability to practice law has been suspended in both New York and Washington due to false and misleading statements he made in an attempt to sway the outcome of Joe Biden’s election.
