CNN
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A federal judge has ruled that Rudy Giuliani lost a defamation lawsuit brought against him by two Georgia poll workers after he failed to provide information sought in subpoenas.
The decision could result in significant penalties for Donald Trump’s former attorney.
In court in recent weeks, Giuliani said he could no longer deny that he made false and defamatory statements about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — just one group of plaintiffs alleging him on defamation charges related to his work for Trump of the 2020 election sue.
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Giuliani said he struggled to maintain his own access to his electronic records — in part due to cost concerns — and failed to adequately respond to subpoenas from Moss and Freeman for information as the case progressed.
“Perhaps he has calculated that his overall litigation risks will be minimized by failing to comply with his disclosure obligations in this case,” Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court in Washington, DC, wrote on Wednesday. “Whatever the reason, the obligations are case-specific and withholding required disclosure in this case has consequences.”
The judge pointed out in his ruling against Giuliani on Wednesday that poll officials may be trying to show that his bogus claims about the 2020 election were in some way aimed at self-enrichment, an argument that will be raised in the damages trial could. Moss and Freeman are seeking unspecified damages after they say they suffered emotional and reputational damage and their safety was threatened after Giuliani singled them out when he made false allegations of vote-rigging after the 2020 Georgia election.
A trial to determine the amount of damages for which Giuliani is liable is scheduled for later this year or early 2024, Howell said Wednesday.
The damage could run into thousands if not millions of dollars.
Giuliani has already been fined nearly $90,000 for Freeman and Moss’ legal fees in this case, and Howell says the former New York City mayor may face other similar penalties.
Michael Gottlieb, an attorney for Moss and Freeman, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday night that Giuliani has yet to pay legal fees and that they will be pursuing a damages lawsuit “in the coming months” that could result in the former mayor being sued to do this must pay “tens of millions of dollars”.
“We understand that this is a substantial damages case that we will present to the jury and we are confident that we can document and prove it,” Gottlieb said in The Source.
Giuliani is struggling financially and is buried under the 2020 election lawsuits, a new criminal case against him in Georgia related to attempts to overturn the election, and other matters. He pleaded not guilty to the Georgia criminal charges and was released from prison on bail.
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In a statement, Moss and Freeman expressed their gratitude for Howell’s decision.
“What we went through after the 2020 election was a living nightmare,” the couple said. “Rudy Giuliani helped unleash a wave of hatred and threats that we could never have imagined. It cost us our sense of security and our freedom to live. Nothing can restore everything we’ve lost, but today’s verdict is another neutral result, confirming what we always knew: that none of the allegations against us were true and that we did nothing wrong.”
The couple concluded, “The struggle to rebuild our reputations and repair the damage in our lives is not over.”
Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, said in a statement Howell’s decision was “a prime example of the weapon of our justice system, where trial is punishment.” Goodman added that Giuliani was “wrongly accused” of not keeping his own records and that he wanted Howell’s decision reversed.
Giuliani had only turned over fewer than 200 relevant documents, a single page of notices, a few legal replies, a “sliver” of needed financial documents, and “blocks of undecipherable data,” Howell wrote.
Giuliani had claimed that the FBI’s seizure of his electronic devices years earlier made it difficult for him to access his records and that he had faced high legal fees. But Howell said he could have taken steps earlier to keep his records in case litigation should arise in the future.
The judge also noted that while Giuliani pleaded with the court that he was buried in litigation costs, he could still get Trump’s reimbursement of his electronic legal debt, listed his Manhattan co-op for $6.5 million and with a Private plane traveled to make a report was jailed in Fulton County, Georgia last week for processing.
Howell noted that Giuliani’s decades of experience as a lawyer, including as Manhattan’s chief federal attorney, underscore his “lackluster preservation efforts.”
“Giuliani has issued statements with concessions that have faltered on scrutiny and excuses intended to mask the inadequacy of his disclosure requirements. The bottom line is that Giuliani has refused to comply with its disclosure obligations and defeated plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea’ ArShaye Moss’ procedural rights to obtain a meaningful discovery in this case,” Howell wrote in a 57-page expert opinion.
“On a public stage it may be good for certain viewers to don a cloak of victimization, but in court that appearance has only served to subvert the normal investigative process in a simple defamation case, with the attendant need for repeated judicial interventions.” ”
Late last month, Giuliani admitted that he made defamatory statements about Freeman and Moss — who are just one of several groups suing Giuliani for defamation related to his work for Trump after the 2020 election — and that he did not deny their allegations I daubed her after the 2020 election.
Giuliani’s statements about them that Freeman and Moss believe to be false included calling them criminal conspirators who stuff the ballots. Giuliani also drew attention to a video of them post-election, first released by the Trump campaign, showing part of a security tape of the Atlanta vote count. Taking to social media, his podcast and other broadcasts, Giuliani said the video showed suitcases filled with ballots, while according to the defamation lawsuit and a state investigation, it captured nothing other than normal ballot processing.
Georgia election officials have debunked Giuliani’s allegations of vote count fraud.
The mother-daughter duo have been candid about how claims by Trump and Giuliani that they were guilty of voter fraud have impacted their lives.
“There is no place where I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the President of the United States target you?” Freeman said so in video testimony last year before the House Special Committee examining events surrounding the Jan. 6 US Capitol riots 2021 examined.
Moss said her privacy was destroyed when she learned Giuliani accused her mother Freeman of giving her some sort of USB stick like “vials of cocaine or heroin” as part of an elaborate voter scam, she said. In reality, the object was a ginger mint. In his controversial call for asking Georgian Foreign Minister Brad Raffensperger to find votes that would help him redeem his 2020 defeat, Trump attacked Moss 18 times, and the former president called Freeman a “professional election fraudster” and a “monger.” “.
“I felt terrible. I felt like everything was my fault,” Moss said during her testimony last year. “I just felt like it was my fault for putting my family in this situation.”
She added that she and her mother were scared to go outside or to the supermarket after receiving threats “that wished me dead, told me I was going to be in jail with my mother and said things like.” : ‘Be glad it is.’” 2020 and not 1920.’”
During Giuliani’s disinformation campaign about the Georgia vote, the FBI recommended that Freeman leave her home for her own safety, the lawsuit says.
This story has been updated with additional reports and details.
