Fulton County election workers seek up to $43M from Giuliani in defamation trial
Former New York City Mayor and attorney of former US President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani attends the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum on September 11, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/G
FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - Two former Fulton County election workers say they are seeking between $15.5 million and $43 million in their defamation lawsuit against former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
In new court filings this week, attorney for mother-daughter duo Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss say they could call Giuliani to the stand.
A federal judge already ruled that Giuliani was liable in the defamation lawsuit in August, saying the former New York City mayor gave "only lip service" to complying with his legal obligations while trying to portray himself as the victim in the case.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said the punishment was necessary because Giuliani had ignored his duty as a defendant to turn over information requested by Freeman and Moss as part of their lawsuit.
Giuliani had previously been ordered to pay more than $230,000 in legal fees to the two women.
The workers’ complaint from December 2021 accused Giuliani, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers and a confidant of the former Republican president, of defaming them by falsely stating that they had engaged in fraud while counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
The lawsuit says Giuliani repeatedly pushed debunked claims that Freeman and Moss pulled out suitcases of illegal ballots and committed other acts of fraud to try to alter the outcome of the race.
In a statement, the women said they had endured a "living nightmare" and an unimaginable "wave of hatred and threats" because of Giuliani’s comments.
"Nothing can restore all we lost, but today’s ruling is yet another neutral finding that has confirmed what we have known all along: that there was never any truth to any of the accusations about us and that we did nothing wrong. We were smeared for purely political reasons, and the people responsible can and should be held accountable," they said.
In her decision, Howell called Giuliani's actions the "willful shirking of his discovery obligations" by not providing information.
"The bottom line is that Giuliani has refused to comply with his discovery obligations and thwarted plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea’ ArShaye Moss’s procedural rights to obtain any meaningful discovery in this case," Howell said.
Wandrea ArShaye "Shaye" Moss (L), former Georgia election worker, is comforted by her mother Ruby Freeman (R) as Moss testifies during the fourth hearing on the January 6th investigation in the Cannon House Office Building on June 21, 2022 in Washing
Giuliani has blamed his failure to produce requested documents on the fact that his devices were seized by federal investigations in 2021 as a part of a separate Justice Department investigation that did not produce any criminal charges.
The ruling compounds the legal jeopardy for Giuliani at a time when he is among the co-defendants charged with former president Donald Trump in Fulton County's investigation related to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
Howell expressed skepticism at Giuliani’s claims that he cannot afford to reimburse the plaintiffs in the case, noting that he recently listed his apartment in Manhattan for $6.5 million and was reported to have flown via private plane to Atlanta to surrender to charges there. He has pleaded not guilty.
"Donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences, but in a court of law this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery in a straight-forward defamation case, with the concomitant necessity of repeated court intervention," Howell wrote.
The hearing to determine the full scope of damages is set for Dec. 11. Attorneys say they expect it to last two to three days.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.