Lawyer for election workers says damages from Giuliani should send a message
An attorney for two former election workers in Georgia told members of a jury in federal court Thursday that they should send a message to consider how much Rudolph W. Giuliani should pay for spreading defamatory lies about them as part of his efforts three years ago to keep President Donald J. Trump in office.
“Send it to Mr. Giuliani. Send it to every other powerful figure with a platform and an audience who is considering whether they will seize the opportunity to pursue profit and fame by assassinating the moral character of ordinary people,” attorney Michael J. Gottlieb said in his closing argument. .
The election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who were counting ballots at the State Farm Arena in Fulton County, Georgia on November 3, 2020, are each seeking at least $24 million from Mr Giuliani as he baselessly accuses them of cheating. Trump is out of voices and broadcasts lying to millions of followers on social media.
Judge Beryl A. Howell of the Federal District Court in Washington has already found that Mr. Giuliani, who served as Mr. Trump’s personal attorney and helped lead the effort to overturn the 2020 election results, murdered the women in discredited. The jury in the civil trial is asked only to determine what damages Mr. Giuliani must pay.
In a last-minute decision, Mr. Giuliani decided not to testify on Thursday as planned. His lawyer and Judge Howell had expressed concern for days that Mr. Giuliani would repeat his baseless claims of election fraud from the stand, as he did outside the courthouse on Monday when he attacked Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss again.
Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer, Joseph Sibley IV, asked the jury to send a message by not landing on a “catastrophic” dollar figure.
“I ask you to be reasonable and fair,” Mr. Sibley said.
Mr. Sibley said that Mr. Giuliani has admitted he was wrong, but that the barrage of abuse directed at Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss after his statements about them was not entirely his fault.
Mr. Sibley argued that Mr. Giuliani himself did not say all the horrible and racist things or encourage violence against the women, and that no amount of money could realistically restore the women’s reputations in the eyes of the people who spread the lies to believe. Mr. Giuliani, he said, knows that defamation is wrong because he believes it is vilified by President Biden.
Mr. Sibley also asked the jury to remind Mr. Giuliani of the reputation he had two decades ago, after serving as mayor of New York City and as a federal prosecutor who took down the Mafia.
“Rudy Giuliani should not be defined by what has happened recently,” Mr. Sibley said. “This is a man who has done great things.”
During the trial, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, mother and daughter, gave emotional testimony about how the falsehoods spread by Mr. Giuliani destroyed their lives.
They told the jury they had received hundreds of threatening and racist messages from people who believed Mr. Giuliani’s claim, causing them to lose their livelihoods, leave their homes and suffer emotional distress.