Rudy Giuliani apparently cannot help himself.
He owes tens of millions of dollars for falsely accusing two Fulton County election workers of voting fraud. He agreed to stop making false statements about them to settle a second lawsuit.
But he continues to accuse them of wrongdoing in the 2020 presidential election. He continues to ignore court-imposed deadlines as they pursue him in court. And he continues to accumulate potential liability — even as he faces criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona for his efforts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Giuliani — the former Donald Trump attorney and New York mayor — will find himself in court again Dec. 12 to answer for his latest comments about the election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss. They have asked a federal judge in Washington to hold Giuliani in contempt — a ruling that could result in more monetary sanctions.
He faces another trial in January as the workers seek to obtain Giuliani’s Florida condo. They’re also trying recover assets a judge has already awarded them, including memorabilia signed by baseball legends Reggie Jackson and Joe DiMaggio and the title to a Mercedes-Benz convertible once owned by actor Lauren Bacall.
Giuliani has fired back, appealing the $148 million jury verdict Freeman and Moss won last December. Among other things, his lawyers argue the plaintiffs did not prove he acted with malice and the verdict was excessive. According to court documents, Giuliani has not sought to halt the sale of his assets.
Giuliani’s spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment this week. A representative of Freeman and Moss declined to comment.
Gerry Weber, an Atlanta attorney who specializes in First Amendment law, said he’s never seen a case quite like Giuliani’s in his 30 years of practice. He doubts the former mayor will prevail as he appeals the jury verdict and defends himself against the contempt motion.
“Giuliani created his own problem here,” Weber said. “He’s made his own bed, and now he has to lie in it.”
Wild claims debunked
The legal odyssey of Freeman, Moss and Giuliani began four years ago, when Trump sought to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia and other states. Trump claimed rampant voting fraud cost him the election — a claim that has been investigated and debunked.
Working for Trump’s campaign, Giuliani showed a Georgia Senate committee security footage of ballot counting at State Farm Arena that he said was clear evidence of fraud.
The footage showed workers pull containers of ballots from beneath a table and begin counting them late on election night — and that’s all. But Giuliani spun a wild tale of voting fraud.
He said Fulton election workers ordered Republican observers and the media to leave on the pretense that they were done counting for the night. He said the workers then pulled “suitcases” of ballots from beneath the table and began counting them. He later said they counted some ballots multiple times.
Investigators with the FBI, the GBI and the Georgia secretary of state found each element of the tale was false.
No one told the observers and media to leave. They left on their own when election workers announced they were done counting for the night, though they could have stayed until workers turned out the lights.
The “suitcases” were regular ballot containers placed under the table when workers thought they were done counting for the night. When Fulton election officials ordered them to keep working, the workers pulled out the containers and resumed counting.
Some ballots were double-scanned because a scanner jammed, but they were not double-counted.
Investigators debunked Giuliani’s tale the next day. But Giuliani and others kept repeating it, accusing Freeman and Moss by name in the weeks that followed.
In congressional testimony and at last year’s trial, Freeman and Moss described the torrent of harassment that followed Giuliani’s accusations. They received hundreds of threats. A crowd gathered outside Freeman’s home, which she fled on the advice of the FBI. Twice people tried to barge into Moss’ grandmother’s house, looking to make “citizens arrests.”
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
Freeman closed her online clothing business, and Moss left her job at the election office.
Freeman and Moss filed a defamation lawsuit against Giuliani and the right-wing cable channel One America News Network in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The network settled the case. Giuliani fought it but later acknowledged in court documents that his statements about the election workers were false.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued a default judgment against Giuliani after he repeatedly refused to turn over documents that would allow Freeman and Moss to make their case.
Last December, a jury awarded Freeman and Moss $33.2 million in compensatory damages for defamation, $40 million for intentional infliction of emotional distress and $75 million in punitive damages.
Freeman hailed the verdict at a news conference after the trial.
“Today’s a good day,” she said. “A jury stood witness to what Rudy Giuliani did to me and my daughter and held him accountable.”
Bankruptcy and appeals
But the pair’s effort to hold Giuliani accountable was just beginning.
He filed for bankruptcy days after the verdict. Freeman and Moss objected, saying it was an attempt to avoid paying them. In July, a federal judge in New York dismissed the bankruptcy case, clearing the way for the election workers and other creditors to collect.
In October, a federal judge in New York ordered Giuliani to surrender a variety of assets to Freeman and Moss. Among them: his interest in a New York apartment, sports memorabilia, luxury watches and the Mercedes convertible.
But Giuliani missed an Oct. 29 deadline to turn over the items and was spotted riding in what appeared to be the Mercedes in question on Election Day. He later surrendered dozens of watches and the Mercedes — but not the title to the vehicle.
“A car without a title is meaningless,” a federal judge told Giuliani’s lawyer at a contentious Nov. 26 hearing, according to NBC News.
Giuliani has appealed the judge’s order to surrender the assets. Separately, the judge has scheduled a January trial on whether Giuliani can shield a Florida condominium from creditors.
Meanwhile, Giuliani has appealed last year’s jury verdict on numerous grounds. In a recent court brief, his lawyers argued Giuliani had made a “rational interpretation” of the State Farm footage — indicating he did not make the fraud allegations maliciously. They said the Georgia officials who debunked his claims were biased, and Giuliani had no reason to believe them.
And while some people who heard his accusations “engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct” against the election workers, Giuliani’s lawyers say he’s not liable for their conduct.
According to court documents, Giuliani has not sought a stay on the sale of his assets or posted a bond, so his creditors are still entitled to enforce judgments against them despite his appeal. And though Trump can pardon defendants in federal criminal cases when he’s sworn in as president again in January, he cannot rescue Giuliani from his civil liabilities.
Amid these legal skirmishes, Giuliani again appeared to accuse Freeman and Moss of voting fraud in two webcasts last month. Among other things, he said they were “quadruple counting votes” and passing around “little hard drives that we maintain were used to fix the machines right and they say it was candy” (Freeman and Moss testified they were sharing ginger mints).
“I’m sorry they’re going to sue me again for saying it, but what am I going to do but tell the truth?” Giuliani said during one webcast, according to court records.
In the contempt motion, lawyers for Freeman and Moss say such comments violate a May settlement that barred Giuliani from accusing them of voting fraud.
Giuliani missed a Dec. 2 deadline to respond to the contempt motion. Howell has directed him to explain why she shouldn’t find him in contempt and focus Thursday’s hearing on appropriate sanctions. As of press time, he still had not responded.
Weber, the First Amendment lawyer, reviewed Giuliani’s jury verdict appeal and the motion for contempt. He said Giuliani is unlikely to prevail in either instance.
He called the appeal “scattershot” — addressing “every possible issue, with pretty slim discussion on any of them.” He doubts an appellate court will overturn the jury verdict.
As to the contempt motion, Weber said courts have been reluctant to support injunctions against future speech. But he said the time for Giuliani to contest the restriction would have been when it was proposed last May. Instead, he agreed to it.
If the judge finds Giuliani in contempt, Weber said the most likely outcome is another trial to assess damages for his latest comments. He said the judge also could impose monetary sanctions for violating the settlement agreement.
If that happens, Weber said Giuliani will have only himself to blame.
“There are very high hurdles facing Giuliani,” Weber said. “It is very hard to unring the bell when you have caused the bell to be rung.”
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