Jury Awards $148 Million in Damages to Georgia Election Workers Over Rudy Giuliani’s 2020 Vote Lies
A jury has awarded $148 million in damages to two former Georgia election workers who sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation over lies he spread about them in 2020 that upended their lives with racist threats and harassment
WASHINGTON (AP) — A jury awarded $148 million in damages on Friday to two former Georgia election workers who sued
Rudy Giuliani for defamation over lies he spread about them in 2020 that
upended their lives with racist threats and harassment.
The damages verdict follows emotional testimony from Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, who tearfully described becoming the target of a false conspiracy theory pushed by Giuliani and other Republicans as they tried to keep then-President Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.
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Giuliani had already been found liable in the case and previously conceded in court documents that he falsely accused the women of ballot fraud. Even so, the former mayor continued to repeat his baseless allegations about the women in comments to reporters outside the Washington, D.C., courthouse this week.
Giuliani’s lawyer acknowledged that his client was wrong but insisted that Giuliani was not fully responsible for the vitriol the women faced. The defense sought to largely pin the blame on a right-wing website that published the surveillance video of the two women counting ballots.
.. Jurors in the defamation case heard recordings of Giuliani falsely accusing the election workers of sneaking in ballots in suitcases, counting ballots multiple times and tampering with voting machines. Trump also repeated the conspiracy theories through his social media accounts. Lawyers for Moss and Freeman, who are Black, also played for jurors
audio recordings of the graphic and racist threats the women received.
On the witness stand, Moss and Freeman described fearing for their lives as hateful messages poured in. Freeman described strangers banging on her door and recounted fleeing her home after people came with bullhorns and the FBI told her she wasn’t safe. Moss told jurors she tried to change her appearance, seldom leaves her home and suffers from panic attacks.
“Our greatest wish is that no one, no election worker, or voter or school board member or anyone else ever experiences anything like what we went through,” Moss told reporters after the verdict. “You all matter, and you are all important.”
But Guess What. Despite the fact his accusations were a total pack of lies Rudy Giuliani still says the election was stolen, still repeats the completely disproven claims made in 2020/21.