Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani are begging jurors not to grant two Georgia election workers the up-to $43 million in damages they’ve requested in their defamation case against the former Trump attorney.
Before the court on Monday, Giuliani’s lawyer Joe Sibley called the proposed damages “the civil equivalent of the death penalty.”
“If you award them what they are asking for, it will be the end of Mr. Giuliani,” he said.
In August, Giuliani was found liable for defaming Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, two Georgia election workers who he falsely accused of participating in vote manipulation in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. A jury trial, which began Monday, will determine how much Giuliani owes the two women in damages. Moss and Freeman have requested a sum between $15.3 million and $43 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The two women have publicly discussed the repercussions of Giuliani’s conspiracy theories about them. During testimony before the Jan. 6 Committee in June of last year, Moss recounted how she and her mother were publicly accused by Giuliani of having exchanged a “USB drive” full of votes. When asked what her mother had actually passed to her Moss replied that the object was “a ginger mint.”
Moss also detailed the many threats made against her by Trump supporters, noting that they were told they should “hang for committing treason.” According to Moss, people went to her grandmother’s home and attempted to “burst down the door and conduct a citizen’s arrest of my mom and me.”
Sibley argued on Monday that while Giuliani had committed defamation, as determined by the court, it was not Giuliani himself who had threatened and harassed Moss and Freeman.
In August, Giuliani was one of 18 individuals indicted alongside former President Donald Trump in a sprawling Georgia RICO case regarding the cohort’s efforts to interfere with the results of the 2020 election in the state. The indictment specifically referenced Giuliani’s role in engineering intimidation and harassment against Freeman and Moss.
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