Crazy Rudy's civil trial kicked off this week. The upcoming results will leave him impoverished -- which is well deserved. Note that Giuliani has already been found responsible for defaming the defendants and causing them emotional distress (as well as intentionally hiding evidence) -- at this point the trial is about the financial amount to be paid by Rudy. Georgia election workers seek ‘tens of millions’ from Giuliani If the jury agrees, “it will be the end of Mr. Giuliani,” his lawyer said. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/11/georgia-election-workers-giuliani-00131197 Two Georgia election workers are seeking “tens of millions of dollars” in damages from Rudy Giuliani for defamation, a punishment that Giuliani’s lawyer said would be so severe it would amount to the “civil equivalent of the death penalty.” Attorneys for Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss — who were deluged by threats and attacks for years after Giuliani and Donald Trump falsely accused them of manipulating ballots in 2020 — revealed the rough damages request for the first time Monday at the opening of a jury trial aimed at determining the proper compensation for the harms they suffered. “Consider a verdict that will send a message,” said Michael Gottlieb, one of the poll workers’ attorneys. “In the United States of America, behavior like Rudy Giuliani’s is not the inevitable result of politics. It is not acceptable and will not be tolerated.” Freeman plans to take the stand and describe emotional pain caused by Giuliani’s attacks, including nightmares about her and her family being killed, one of their lawyers said. And Moss intends to describe walking out of a job interview at Chick-fil-A — after leaving her eight-year career as an election worker — when the manager confronted her with news articles describing Giuliani’s false allegations. As the case kicked off Monday, jurors also heard jarring audio of racist and violent phone messages and saw the text of emails, some echoing the false allegations that Giuliani and Trump lodged against Freeman and Moss as Trump sought to subvert his defeat in the 2020 election. Many of the messages contained racial slurs, including the N-word, which was played in court repeatedly and quoted aloud by another of the pair’s attorneys, Von DuBose. U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who is presiding over the trial, has already found that Giuliani defamed Freeman and Moss and caused them emotional distress. Howell issued that ruling in August as a sanction for her finding that the former New York mayor and federal prosecutor intentionally hid evidence from them, including evidence about his net worth. The jury’s only role is to settle on Giuliani’s punishment — a dollar amount they can tie to the harms he caused as well as additional “punitive” damages meant to deter others from acting similarly in the future. Giuliani targeted Freeman and Moss in remarks to Georgia lawmakers in December 2020, falsely claiming that video evidence showed them manipulating ballots at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. The allegation spread like wildfire among Trump’s allies who were seeking evidence of election fraud that could give Trump a pretense to challenge the results — and they persisted even after Georgia election officials debunked them. Trump himself supercharged the attacks on Moss and Freeman by raising them on a Jan. 2, 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Giuliani, girding for an eye-popping financial verdict, is pleading with the jury to consider whether Freeman and Moss’ suffering could really be directly tied to him. Giuliani attorney Joseph Sibley began his brief opening statement by immediately conceding that his client was “wrong” to have blamed Freeman and Moss for fraud, although he quickly attributed that concession to the ruling Howell already delivered. “There’s really no question that these plaintiffs were harmed,” Sibley said, calling them “good people.” “They didn’t deserve what happened to them.” However, Sibley called the amount of damages the pair are claiming “truly incredible,” and he made clear that the primary thrust of Giuliani’s defense will be to claim that the chaos and fear that descended on them in December of 2020 wasn’t solely the fault of Giuliani, Trump or officials in the Trump campaign. “What happened to them is because of a controversy that involved a lot of people. It wasn’t just Mr. Giuliani,” Sibley said during his six-minute opening. “You’re going to see a lot of evidence of harm … but not much evidence that Mr. Giuliani was the cause.” If the jury awards Moss and Freeman damages in the amount they’re seeking, he said, “It will be the end of Mr. Giuliani.” The poll workers’ lawyers plan to call a media analysis expert to try to connect many of the threats and insults the pair received to particular phrases or media appearances by Giuliani and others he worked with on the Trump campaign. Trump is not a defendant in the lawsuit, but is likely to be a major presence in the case. Attorneys for Moss and Freeman described his social media megaphone as the most powerful on the planet and noted that he used it to amplify Giuliani’s attacks. A photo of Trump and Giuliani leaning toward one another was displayed on TV screens in the courtroom as an attorney for Freeman and Moss described what Howell has already ruled was a “civil conspiracy” to defame the pair and cause them emotional distress. “The plan succeeded because it had at its disposal the most powerful amplifier on earth,” Gottlieb said. “The social media account of President Donald J. Trump.” Moss and Freeman’s attorneys said attaching a dollar figure to the harm the women suffered is necessarily subjective, but they intend to introduce evidence from an expert to quantify it. Their harms included Freeman having to leave her home amid safety threats, rename her business and go into hiding. Moss had to leave her job as an election worker and struggled to find other work. Both women memorably testified about similar struggles when they appeared before the House Jan. 6 select committee last year. Gottlieb urged the jury to consider “how needless, how cruel” it was for Giuliani to portray “civil servants as fraudsters and criminals without evidence, knowing that millions of people will believe and act upon those lies.”
Let's say you are Rudy Giuliani... and let's say you are a total idiot... but I am repeating myself. So if you are Rudy what is the first thing you do after the first day of your civil defamation trial? Remembering that you have already been found responsible for defamation. Well, you further defame the victims outside the courthouse. Rudy Giuliani spews defamatory claims about election workers outside defamation trial ‘Were Defendant Giuliani to testify in a manner remotely resembling those comments, he would be in plain violation of the Court’s prior orders,’ election workers’ attorneys argue in legal filing https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...liani-defamation-trial-election-b2462720.html Judge: Giuliani may have defamed Georgia election workers again outside DC courthouse Just minutes after leaving the first day of his civil trial, Rudy Giuliani repeated a false allegation about the pollworkers. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/12/judge-giuliani-defamed-georgia-election-workers-00131288
At this point, Rudy basically is a moron. It's sad. He needs to be locked up so he shuts up and stops harming others. Judge rebukes Giuliani over ‘defamatory’ comments he made about Georgia election workers during defamation damages trial https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/12/politics/rudy-giuliani-rebuked-defamation/index.html The federal judge overseeing Rudy Giuliani’s defamation damages trial in Washington, DC, rebuked the former Donald Trump lawyer Tuesday over “quite defamatory” comments he made a day earlier to reporters about the two Georgia election workers at the center of the case. US District Judge Beryl Howell said Giuliani’s comments outside the federal courthouse in DC “could support another defamation claim.” The remarks about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were “negative, quite defamatory statements about them yet again.” Speaking to reporters Monday evening following the first day of trial, Giuliani claimed that everything he said about the two women in the wake of the 2020 election was true. Giuliani also repeated the false claim that “they were engaged in changing votes.” When a reporter responded there was no proof of such an allegation, Giuliani said: “Oh you’re damn right there is. Stay tuned.” Giuliani has already been found liable for defamation and he owes Freeman and Moss over $230,000 after failing to respond to parts of their lawsuit. The mother and daughter are now seeking tens of millions of dollars, claiming that they have suffered emotional and reputational harm as well as having their safety put in danger after Giuliani singled them out when he made false claims of ballot tampering in Georgia. Howell sharply questioned Giuliani’s attorney, Joseph Sibley, about the fact that his client’s statements were a clear departure from the tone the attorney struck Monday when he delivered opening statements in the trial. “How do you reconcile those statements … with his statement yesterday after court that they engaged in criminal conduct?” she asked Sibley. “I can’t control everything he does, your honor,” Sibley said at one point, adding: “I think Mr. Giuliani is well aware of the law of defamation, your honor.” Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, also previously served as the lead federal prosecutor in Manhattan. Later, Howell asked whether Sibley would be able to keep his client from repeating similar comments when he testifies later in the trial. She said it was “grossly unfair to the plaintiffs if he made those statements on the stand when they have been denied access to the information to cross examine him,” referring to the fact that Giuliani’s has already conceded that he made defamatory comments about Freeman and Moss. “He seems perfectly capable of following instructions should he be given instructions by the court,” Howell said.
Giuliani’s Defense Says $43 Million in Damages Would Be ‘Death Penalty’ https://www.thedailybeast.com/rudy-...r43-million-in-damages-would-be-death-penalty
After Giuliani tells reporters outside the courthouse that he plans to testify that the lies he told about the GA election workers are true, the Judge asks Rudy's lawyer to remind his client what "perjury" is, and its consequences. Judge shreds Rudy Giuliani's plans to spread the Big Lie on the stand: "Perjuring himself" https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...ie-on-the-stand-perjuring-himself/ar-AA1loGIR
Deep In A Hole, Rudy Giuliani Just Keeps On Digging https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/rudy-giuliani-defamation-shaye-moss-ruby-fre
Rudy Giuliani caused $47.5 million in reputational damage to 2 election workers he defamed, expert testifies at trial https://www.businessinsider.com/rud...amage-georgia-election-workers-expert-2023-12
It’s the Beginning of the Disastrous End for Rudy Giuliani Rudy Giuliani screwed up his professional license in 2021. This is the year of his financial ruin. Next year could end with him in prison. https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-the-beginning-of-the-disastrous-end-for-rudy-giuliani