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Lawyers for the two Georgia election officials who won $148 million in damages last week from former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani filed a new lawsuit Monday asking a federal judge to order him to stop his damaging debunked claims about the election workers no longer to be repeated, and to enforce the lawsuit immediately before his assets are wasted.
Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Arshaye “Shaye” Moss claimed that Giuliani continues to baselessly accuse former Fulton County poll workers of manipulating the counting of mail-in ballots to steal the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump in Georgia. The former New York mayor repeated the allegations last week during and after his defamation damages trial, although his lawyer acknowledged in court that the claims were false.
“Everything I said about her is true,” Giuliani told reporters outside the courthouse after the first day of his trial on December 11, adding: “Of course I have no regrets. … They were busy changing votes.”
On Friday, hours after an eight-member federal jury sentenced Giuliani to pay the two workers three times what they were demanding, Giuliani gave another live news interview in which he claimed he was unable to provide evidence of “all the videos on this “Time” shows “what happened in the arena,” lawyers for Moss and Freeman claimed.
U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell had found Giuliani liable before trial based on his own admissions and his refusal to turn over to the women's lawyers evidence in the case and relevant information such as his net worth and the size of his radio station, YouTube other online target groups. Giuliani declined to contest the facts and did not testify in his own defense, despite publicly announcing he would do so. Howell gave Giuliani until 2 p.m. Tuesday to respond to the women's request to expedite enforcement of the order.
At trial, Giuliani attorney Joseph D. Sibley IV told jurors that his client did not testify out of respect for the women who “have been through enough,” adding, “Mr. “Giuliani is a good man,” even if “he hasn’t exactly helped himself with some of the things that have happened in the last few days.”
After the verdict, Giuliani said he did not testify because he feared he would be sent to prison for contempt of court. He continued to falsely claim that there was evidence that the jury could not see to support his allegations against Freeman and Moss. Giuliani also faces federal criminal charges against Trump in Georgia for related crimes and could have risked incriminating himself.
Lawyers for Freeman and Moss wrote Monday that they had asked Giuliani to agree to stop making such false claims before filing their new lawsuit seeking a court order and attorney fees, but Giuliani refused to agree.
“Defendant Giuliani’s statements, coupled with his refusal to agree to continue to refrain from making such statements, make it clear that he intends to continue his campaign of targeted defamation and harassment. This must stop,” attorney Michael J. Gottlieb for the plaintiff’s legal team wrote in a 10-page motion, asking for a “targeted injunction” preventing Giuliani from repeating his defamatory falsehoods.
Sibley did not respond to a request for comment. Giuliani's political adviser Ted Goodman said he would not comment on pending legal matters but noted Giuliani's past successes as New York mayor.
Minutes after filing the new lawsuit, Gottlieb Howell, Giuliani's trial judge, asked to allow the plaintiffs to immediately pursue the $148 million verdict, citing the risk that Giuliani, the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, would use up his savings before any money could be reclaimed.
“It is time to allow plaintiffs to begin their efforts to collect everything they can from a recalcitrant defendant,” Gottlieb wrote. There is an automatic 30-day grace period for money judgments in federal court, but a judge can choose to end it early.
Giuliani has repeatedly said through lawyers that he is in dire financial straits. But the plaintiffs say he has “significant assets,” including a South Florida condo and a Manhattan co-op currently on the market for $6.1 million, as well as “numerous accounts” at New York banks.
At the same time, Gottlieb expressed concern that Freeman and Moss will soon have to compete with other creditors as Giuliani is being sued by one of his former lawyers and Hunter Biden and is facing criminal charges in Georgia.
Gottlieb suggested that, as an alternative to an immediate sentence, Giuliani should ask to post a bond that would prevent him from hiding or spending his remaining assets. The plaintiff's attorney noted that Giuliani has not yet paid any of the six-figure fines Howell imposed on him for failing to comply with court orders before the jury trial.
“There are particularly good reasons to believe that defendant Giuliani intends to avoid paying the judgment by any means at his disposal,” Gottlieb wrote.
