Rudy Giuliani at 60 Center Street in Manhattan on September 8, 2022.
Théodore Parisienne | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
A federal jury on Friday ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay more than $148 million to two Georgia election officials for falsely claiming that they committed voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
The staggering figure includes $75 million in punitive damages, as well as $20 million each for emotional distress and more than $16 million each for defamation. .
Mr. Giuliani was in court as a federal judge read the sentence. After court adjourned, the plaintiffs happily hugged each other, and Giuliani stood alone, stuffing his bags without looking up, according to NBC News.
Outside court, Giuliani called the damages amount “unreasonable” and vowed to appeal.
The defamation damages award is the latest in a series of legal blows against Giuliani for his role as top campaign lawyer in Donald Trump’s effort to reverse the former Republican president’s election loss. It’s a series of related legal blows to Mr. Giuliani.
Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump and 17 other defendants were indicted this summer in state criminal court in Georgia in connection with Mr. Trump’s attempt to reverse his defeat.
Friday’s civil verdict by a jury came after Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers said he would not testify in the case in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., reversing his plans to do so. .
The plaintiffs in this case, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shay” Moss, are a mother and daughter. sued Giuliani in 2021 Defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy.
Courtroom sketch of Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shay” Moss during Rudy Giuliani’s defamation trial, December 14, 2023.
Artist: Bill Hennessy
In August, Judge Beryl Howell issued a default judgment against Giuliani in favor of the women after he repeatedly failed to comply with orders to turn over evidence to his lawyers. Mr. Giuliani previously admitted that he made false and defamatory statements about the women for the purposes of the lawsuit.
The Howell decision meant that the trial would only decide how much the former New York mayor would pay the women in damages.
On Tuesday, social media experts said it would cost between $17 million and nearly $48 million to repair the reputational damage the women suffered as a result of lies told about them by Giuliani and others. I testified.
During a Georgia Senate hearing after the 2020 election, Giuliani said that Freeman and Moss were selling USB flash drives like “vials of heroin and cocaine” at vote-counting stations as part of a plot to defraud President Trump of the election victory. He said they were passing it on. Moss later testified to Congress that he and his mother had been passing out candy.
Freeman testified at trial that after Giuliani made claims about her and her daughter, she received constant threats and left her home for two months in early 2021 at the FBI’s urging.
“We’re coming for you and your family!” one email sent to Freeman read, according to evidence shown to the jury. “Ruby, the safest place for you right now is prison. Otherwise you’ll be jumping out of a tree.”
“Every time I go somewhere, I’m so scared if I have to use my own name,” Freeman said in tears on the witness stand.
Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer in the case, Joseph Sibley, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
