Jury orders Giuliani to pay $148 million to election workers he defamed

A federal jury on Friday ordered Rudolph W. Giuliani to pay two former Georgia election officials more than $148 million for destroying their reputations and causing extreme emotional distress by spreading baseless lies that they had tried to secure a victory for President Donald J. Trump to steal after the 2020 presidential election.

The award came after Judge Beryl A. Howell of the Federal District Court in Washington ruled that Mr. Giuliani, who helped lead Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in office after his defeat, accused the two workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, had defamed. The jury in the civil trial was asked to decide only the amount of damages.

The jury awarded Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss a combined $75 million in damages. It also ordered Mr. Giuliani to pay compensatory damages of $16.2 million to Ms. Freeman and $16.9 million to Ms. Moss, as well as $20 million to each for emotional distress.

During hours of emotional testimony, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss described how their lives were turned upside down after Dec. 3, 2020, when Mr. Giuliani first suggested they had engaged in election fraud to swing the outcome against Mr. Trump let it tilt. Georgia, a critical swing state.

The women, who are Black and mother and daughter, were soon inundated with expletive-laden calls and messages, threats and racist attacks, they testified. People said they should be hanged or lynched for treason; Others told them they fantasized about hearing the sound of their necks being snapped.

They came to Mrs. Freeman’s house. They attempted to make a citizen’s arrest of Mrs. Moss at her grandmother’s home. They called Ms. Moss’s 14-year-old son’s cell phone so often that it disrupted his virtual classes, and he finished his freshman year of high school with poor grades.

“This all started with one tweet,” Ms. Freeman told the jury, referring to a social media post from Mr. Giuliani that read: “WATCH: Video footage from Georgia shows suitcases filled with ballots being pulled from under a table AFTER supervisors told poll workers to leave room and 4 people stayed behind to continue counting the votes.”

Mr. Giuliani did not testify at the trial. His lawyer, Joseph Sibley IV, told the jury that his client, the former New York mayor and federal prosecutor, should not be held responsible for abuse directed at Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss by others.

Mr. Sibley said Mr. Giuliani decided not to testify on Thursday, in part to avoid putting the women under more emotional pressure.

Lawyers for Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss asked the jury to send a message in deciding what to pay Mr. Giuliani.

“Send it to Mr. Giuliani,” one of the lawyers, Michael J. Gottlieb, said in his closing argument Thursday. “Send it to every other powerful figure with a platform and an audience who is considering whether to seize the opportunity to pursue profit and fame by assassinating the moral character of ordinary people.”

Mr. Sibley warned that an award of the scale sought by the women would be the civil equivalent of the death penalty for Mr. Giuliani, who is struggling financially and under indictment in Georgia, where a local prosecutor has filed racketeering charges. him, Mr. Trump and others in connection with their efforts to overturn the former president’s election loss there.

But Mr. Giuliani’s net worth is unknown because he refused to comply with the lawsuit’s routine disclosures.