A jury decided on Friday that Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York and lawyer for the Trump campaign, must pay $148 million in damages for falsely accusing two election workers of rigging the 2020 election.
The verdict reached by the court says that Giuliani defamed Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss with allegations of election fraud. As punishment, he must pay them $36 million each as “compensation” as well as an additional $75 million as a “punitive” charge. These amounts were decided on by the jury and were actually higher than what the plaintiffs’ lawyers had asked for ($24 million each plus damages).
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“If you award them what they are asking for, it will be the end of Mr. Giuliani,” his lawyer Joe Sibley said last week. Earlier in the court process, Giuliani had indicated that he is struggling financially.
The trial revolved around the charge that Giuliani’s allegations of fraud (which was ruled to constitute defamation by a judge in August) brought untold stress to Freeman and Moss in the form of death threats from Trump supporters. Their lawyers claimed that the women had to live in fear and go into hiding to feel safe, costing them job opportunities.
“I was afraid for my life,” Moss said in a testimony on Tuesday. “I literally felt that someone would attempt to hang me and there was nothing anyone could do about it.”
Giuliani had shared a video clip after the election in 2020 that was supposed to show the two women committing fraud, scanning ballots multiple times to prevent Trump from winning the swing state. The Georgia Secretary of State’s office, under the leadership of Frank Braun, conducted a year-long investigation into claims of voter fraud. The office concluded that Giuliani’s claims about Freeman and Moss were “false and unsubstantiated.”
Giuliani called the $148 million fine “absurd” and implied he believed he could appeal it. The former mayor also faces over ten charges in a racketeering case put forward by the District Attorney of Fulton County, Ga.
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