Rudy Giuliani ordered to pay $148 million to Georgia election workers

Two Georgia election workers who were defamed by Rudy Giuliani were awarded $148 million in emotional and punitive damages by a Washington, D.C., jury on Friday after being vilified and accused of faking election results. 

Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Shaye Moss had asked for $24 million each. They testified in court how their lives were upended and their reputations destroyed after Giuliani claimed they had engaged in election fraud to give President Joe Biden the edge in Georgia over former President Donald Trump during the 2020 election.

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A defiant Giuliani told reporters outside the courtroom, “I don’t regret a damn thing!”

He added that he would appeal the ruling.

“We’ll appeal,” he said. “The absurdity of the number merely underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding.”

The mother-daughter duo received death threats from people who said they deserved to be hanged from trees and hanged at the United States Capitol close enough for the public to “hear their necks snap.”

In the days, weeks, and months following the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost, Giuliani claimed Freeman and Moss “engaged in surreptitious illegal activity” and said they were caught on camera “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.” The USB port Giuliani spoke about turned out to be a ginger mint.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

The claims about Freeman and Moss were quickly debunked by Georgia election officials, but that did not stop Giuliani, who continued to claim, as late as this week, that they helped carry out a plot to steal the election.

On Monday, Giuliani told reporters that “everything I said about them is true.”

The jury decision was not a determination of his guilt or innocence — he was already found liable in August — but revolved solely on how much money the former New York mayor would have to pay in damages following a wave of hateful comments that derailed their lives and ruined their reputations. 

Giuliani’s net worth is estimated to be less than $50 million, based on his attorney’s comments in court that the damages sought by Moss and Freeman would “be the end” of him.

Less than two decades ago, Giuliani’s net worth was more than $50 million, with $15 million coming from his business activities, including his work with lobbying firm Giuliani Partners, CNN reported. At the time, he earned about $17 million a year.

“Day after day, Mr. Giuliani reminds you who he is,” Michael Gottlieb, the attorney for the plaintiffs, told the eight-member jury during closing arguments on Thursday.

“Mr. Giuliani’s defense is his reputation, his comfort, and his goals are more important than those of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss,” he added. “That is a fiction, and it ends today.”

The trial itself was an emotional roller coaster with Freeman and Moss tearfully recounting scores of racist and hateful messages they received following the election and how their mental health had spiraled.

“Every single aspect of my life has changed,” Moss told the jury. “Everything’s turned upside down. Everything is different.”

She added that people were messaging her, “calling, texting, online, saying that I need to die, they’re gonna kill me, they want to kill my mom, they know where we are, they know where we sleep, and we should die.”

During closing arguments, their attorney said they had experienced firsthand what it was like to become “targets of some of the most powerful men on the planet” and claimed Giuliani didn’t see them as “human beings” but instead something he could manipulate to fit a false narrative.

For his part, Giuliani talked a big game but came up short.

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He told reporters how he would clear his name and set the record straight, only to do a 180 just hours before he was supposed to take the stand. His lawyers held an early morning news conference on Thursday saying Giuliani would not be testifying. His defense team did not bring a single witness to the stand and instead went straight to closing statements.

Jose Luis Magana/AP

Giuliani’s attorney, Joseph Sibley IV, attempted to soften his client’s image, reminding jurors he was once known for leadership skills and as “America’s mayor” following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Sibley added that he was “not asking for a hall pass for him” but that the punishment be “just.”