Election worker suing Rudy Giuliani testifies in defamation trial against him

A former Georgia election worker testified Tuesday in a trial to determine how much Rudy Giuliani will have to pay her and her mother after he was found liable for defaming them with baseless claims that they committed fraud in the 2020 election.

Wandrea “Shaye” Moss took the stand as the fourth plaintiffs’ witness in the case. She and her mother, Ruby Freeman, sued Giuliani over the bogus claims, which they say turned their lives upside down.

Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, former federal prosecutor and Donald Trump ally, was found by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell earlier this year to have defamed the two women, including by falsely claiming they were handing around what he alleged were USB drives “like they were vials of heroin or cocaine” while the vote count was being taken. In reality, they were exchanging a ginger mint.

Attorneys for the election workers asked Howell on Monday night to block Giuliani from saying anything that would violate court orders after he again said his baseless claims of fraud were true following opening statements earlier in the day.

In August, the judge found Giuliani “civilly liable on plaintiffs’ defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and punitive damage claims” because of his “willful discovery misconduct” and his purposeful “shirking of his discovery obligations.”

Giuliani conceded in a court filing in July that he had made “false” statements about Freeman and Moss.

In her testimony, Moss detailed the negative toll the false allegations have taken on her day-to-day life: “I now am very anxious, I have these non-stop anxious sweats. I have a lot of dark moments. I no longer go out. I will not be caught out anywhere alone, ever.”

“I look totally different, I gained like 70 pounds. I stress eat, I cry a lot,” she added. “I’m just this whole new stressed out person.”

Moss’s testimony Tuesday came after jurors watched recorded deposition videos of investigators Frank Brown and Frances Watson, who looked into election fraud claims for the Georgia secretary of state. Brown and Watson testified that they did not find evidence to support allegations of fraud.

Brown testified that his investigation found no evidence of Freeman having counted ballots multiple times or scanned fraudulent ballots. He noted that sometimes ballot counting machines jam or fail to scan, requiring the operator to scan a ballot multiple times before it is counted, and that if anyone had actually counted ballots multiple times that would have shown up on recounts.

Watson’s testimony largely mirrored Brown’s. She confirmed that observers were never kicked out of State Farm Arena in Atlanta, where the vote counting was taking place, and that fraudulent ballots weren’t brought in by suitcase and hidden under tables.

In opening statements Monday, one of Freeman and Moss’s attorneys, Michael Gottlieb, told jurors that Freeman and Moss received an “overwhelming” amount of “vile, racist, hateful comments” that were “fueled” by Giuliani and his co-conspirators. For a staggering number of Americans, their names have become synonymous with crime and fraud, Gottlieb said.

Von DuBose, Gottlieb’s co-counsel, said the pair will testify and “will explain as best they can what it’s like to have their lives hijacked in an instant, through no fault of their own.”  

In remarks to reporters outside the courthouse Monday, Giuliani said he did not regret his lies and claimed he “told the truth” about Freeman and Moss.

“When I testify, you’ll get the whole story, and it will be definitively clear what I said was true,” he said.

Giuliani’s comments contrast with those of his attorney Joseph Sibley, who said in opening remarks that there’s no question that Freeman and Moss were harmed and tare “good people,” but that the “punishment must match the crime.” He maintained that Giuliani never promoted racism or violence and that the millions of dollars Freeman and Moss are seeking would be the “civil equivalent of the death penalty.”

“It would be the end of Mr. Giuliani,” Sibley added.

Howell on Tuesday interrogated Sibley over Giuliani’s “I don’t regret it” comment to reporters as he left the courthouse the day before. Giuliani’s statement alone could support a whole new defamation claim against him, Howell said, while pointing out that Giuliani contradicted his own lawyer who called Freeman and Moss “good people” who did not deserve what happened to them.

“Was Mr. Giuliani just playing for the cameras, for the media, yesterday?” Howell asked Sibley.

Sibley ultimately said he couldn’t reconcile his client’s statement with the approach he took during his opening statement and acknowledged that he can’t entirely control his client’s actions.

The judge found Giuliani liable for damages after he repeatedly defied court orders to turn over evidence in the case to the pair.

“Just as taking shortcuts to win an election carries risks — even potential criminal liability — bypassing the discovery process carries serious sanctions,” Howell ruled in August.

Eight jurors were selected Monday. Potential jurors were asked questions such as whether they believe Joe Biden’s election was illegitimate and whether they have ever used a slogan associated with QAnon conspiracy theorists.

Freeman and Moss’ lawyers have said their testimonies will discuss the “threats, harassment, and harm” they experienced as a result of the false claims. The mother and daughter “will explain as best they can what it’s like to have their lives hijacked in an instant, through no fault of their own,” DuBose told the jury.

The pair is seeking “a sum ranging from $15.5 million to $43 million, inclusive of special damages,” their lawyers wrote in a court filing. Freeman and Moss will “ask the jury to award compensatory damages for the severe emotional distress caused by Defendant Giuliani and his co-conspirators between 2020 through the present in an amount to be determined by the jury, including based on Plaintiffs’ mental pain and suffering, fear, inconvenience, nervousness, indignity, insult, humiliation, or embarrassment that Plaintiffs suffered directly because of Defendant Giuliani and his co-conspirators’ conduct,” they wrote.

Freeman and Moss will also ask the jury “to award punitive damages against Defendant Giuliani as a punishment for his outrageous conduct and to deter him and others from engaging in that kind of conduct, in an amount to be determined by the jury, including based on the relevant legal factors and adverse inferences entered in this case,” their attorneys said.

“The only issue remaining in this trial will be for a jury to determine how much Defendant Giuliani owes to Plaintiffs for the damage his conduct caused,” they wrote.

Giuliani will testify at trial, as well, Sibley told jurors.

Following opening statements Monday, one witness, Regina Scott, a law enforcement expert at the global consulting company Jensen Hughes, was called for the plaintiffs’ side.

Scott discussed the contents of a report that summarized her organization’s findings on “safety concerns and negative information” in case of Freeman and Moss. The report found 710,000 social media mentions of variations of Freeman’s and Moss’s names between November 2021 and May 2023 across multiple platforms such as Reddit and Twitter, with overwhelmingly negative sentiments against the mother and daughter. There were also 318,000 mentions during the next three months and 320,000 during the three months after that — all trending negative in sentiment based on Jensen Hughes’ methods of tracking.

During questioning, DuBose asked Scott to read aloud some of the more sensitive posts, including the contents of a user-generated “wanted” poster with Freeman’s face on it. Scott said she was not used to seeing such “racist and graphic material,” especially in this volume. 

Sibley also questioned Scott on the integrity of the report’s creators. Asked if the firm is being paid for its services in creating the report, she said yes, but did not know the amount. Sibley then asked if they keep billing records and what her individual hourly rate is for the case. Scott said her hourly rate “varies” but that this case was billed based on time spent. Sibley also questioned whether the analysts evaluating the social media posts have special training or college degrees and what those degrees were in.

Sibley asked Scott how many of the thousands of posts that were found mentioned Giuliani by name, and whether particular news events could be responsible for the spikes in mention of Freeman and Moss.

When DuBose returned, he asked Scott whether, regardless of what she’s been paid, she would testify untruthfully — referring to Sibley’s earlier question, and she replied that she would not.