Lawyers for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani argued that paying $43 million to election workers in a defamation civil case would be a type of “death penalty” for the 79-year-old.
Two Georgia election workers have brought the lawsuit against Mr. Giuliani over statements that he made after the 2020 election. A judge in Washington has already issued a ruling that Mr. Giuliani defamed the two workers, and the litigation is now determining what penalty he should pay.
During opening arguments in the case, Giuliani attorney Joseph Sibley told the court that Mr. Giuliani wasn’t a direct reason why workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss allegedly received death threats and harassment after the election.
“If you award them what they are asking for, it will be the end of Mr. Giuliani,” Mr. Sibley said, according to reporters in the court. He added that the $43 million would be the “civil equivalent of the death penalty” for his client.
The defamation lawsuit stems from statements that Mr. Giuliani made during a 2020 state legislative hearing. He said that the election workers in question allegedly “were quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine” and also allegedly “engaged in surreptitious illegal activity.”
According to court documents, Mr. Giuliani also referenced surveillance footage that he alleged showed the workers hiding “suitcases” full of illegal ballots under tables at a vote processing center in Atlanta, and counting the ballots multiple times. He accused them of surreptitiously passing around a USB drive. The purported computer drive was actually a ginger mint, the two workers later said.
While arguing that the penalty be “fair and proportional,” Mr. Sibley said that “there’s no question these claimants were harmed. They didn’t deserve what happened to them.”
“But what happened to them happened because of a controversy involving a lot of people, not just Rudy Giuliani. You’ll see a lot of evidence of harm. But not a lot of evidence Mr. Giuliani was the cause,” he said in court.
In an earlier court filing, Mr. Giuliani said he made that concession “solely for purposes of this litigation” and “without admitting to the truth of the allegations.” Ted Goodman, an adviser to Mr. Giuliani, said in a statement earlier this year that the former mayor wanted “to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss.”
The attorney added that Mr. Giuliani never made any threatening statements about the election workers outside of the fraud claims. Mr. Sibley also told the judge that the case has “taken a toll” on the former mayor, coming after the former mayor told reporters on Monday that “everything I said was true” about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss regarding the election.
“When I testify, the whole story will be definitively clear that what I said was true, and that, whatever happened to them–which is unfortunate about other people overreacting–everything I said about them is true,” Mr. Giuliani told reporters. “Of course I don’t regret it. I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes.”
Attorneys for Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, however, said they suffered emotional, psychological, and other forms of harm in connection to Mr. Giuliani’s statements about them. The lawyers said that the jury should award the two punitive and compensatory damages.
“This case is about how Mr. Giuliani and his co-conspirators took these folks’ good names. Names are important. Names are significant,” lawyer attorney Von DuBose said, according to court reporters. “That’s what this case is about. It’s about two names that have been disgraced. Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.”
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who is overseeing the case, has already found Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman are entitled to damages for their claims of defamation, infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy.
The judge ruled in August that Mr. Giuliani had made it difficult for them to prove their case at trial by failing to turn over evidence as required. The jury’s verdict could worsen financial problems for Mr. Giuliani, a former Trump attorney who has faced a series of legal problems after the election.
Mr. Giuliani was indicted in a racketeering case in Georgia against President Donald Trump and several of his allies. Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump have pleaded not guilty.
A New York state court suspended Mr. Giuliani’s law license, and a District of Columbia ethics hearing committee earlier this year recommended that his license there be revoked.
Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman, meanwhile, settled defamation claims with the One America News Network, or OANN, for an undisclosed sum last year after filing a similar defamation lawsuit against the network.
