A jury ordered Donald Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani to pay $148 million in damages on Friday for defaming two Georgia poll workers with his false claims they engaged in election fraud.
The eight-person federal jury awarded Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss more than $16 million each for defamation, $20 million each for emotional distress and $75 million in punitive damages.
The 79-year-old Giuliani was found liable in August of defaming the Fulton County poll workers with his 2020 election lies on behalf of former president Trump.
Giuliani, who led Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the results of the election, posted a video of the pair that falsely accused them of engaging in fraud during ballot-counting and made numerous other baseless claims about them.
Speaking to reporters following the damages award, Moss said the “past few years have been devastating.”
“The flame that Giuliani lit with those lies and passed to so many others to keep that flame blazing changed every aspect of our lives, our homes, our family, our work, our sense of safety, our mental health,” she said.
Giuliani denounced the damages award as “absurd” and told reporters he would appeal. “I am quite confident when this case gets before a fair tribunal it’ll be reversed so quickly,” he told reporters.
Giuliani also appeared to double down on his baseless allegations against the 64-year-old Freeman and the 39-year-old Moss.
“I have no doubt that my comments were made and they were supportable and are supportable today,” he said. “I just did not have an opportunity to present the evidence that we offered.”—Agencies
