Former NYC mayor Rudi Giuliani sued for $148,000,000 over ‘rigged’ 2020 ballot

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has been ordered to pay $148million in damages to two former election workers who sued him for defamation.

A jury awarded the equivalent of £116 million in damages on Friday to two former Georgia election workers who sued Giuliani for claims he made about them committing election fraud .

The pair said the former personal attorney for Donald Trump spread lies about them in 2020 that upended their lives after ending with racist threats and harassment.

The damages verdict follows emotional testimony from Wandrea ‘Shaye’ Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman.

In court they tearfully described becoming the target of a false conspiracy theory pushed by Mr Giuliani and other Republicans as they tried to keep then-president Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

There was an audible gasp in the courtroom when the jury foreperson read aloud the $75 million (£59 million) award in punitive damages for the women.

Ms Moss and Ms Freeman were each awarded another roughly $36 million (£28 million) in other damages.

Mr Giuliani did not appear to show any emotion as the verdict was read in Washington’s federal courthouse after about 10 hours of deliberations.

Ms Moss and Ms Freeman hugged their lawyers after the jury left the courtroom and did not look at Mr Giuliani as he left with his lawyer.

Mr Giuliani told reporters outside the court that he will appeal, saying the ‘absurdity of the number merely underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding’.

‘It will be reversed so quickly it will make your head spin, and the absurd number that just came in will help that actually,’ he said.

Mr Giuliani had already been found liable in the case and previously conceded in court documents that he falsely accused the women of ballot fraud.

Despite this admission the former New York City mayor continued to repeat hisallegations about the women in comments to reporters outside the Washington, DC court this week.

Mr Giuliani’s lawyer acknowledged that his client was wrong but insisted that Mr Giuliani was not fully responsible for the vitriol the women faced.

The defence sought to largely pin the blame on a right-wing website that published a surveillance video of the two women counting ballots.

It is the latest of mounting legal and financial hurdles for Mr Giuliani, who was among the loudest proponents of Mr Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

These claims are now a key part of the criminal cases against the former president.

Mr Giuliani had already been showing signs of financial strain as he defends himself against costly lawsuits and investigations stemming from his representation of Mr Trump.

His lawyer suggested that the defamation case could financially ruin the former mayor, saying ‘it would be the end of Mr Giuliani’.

Mr Giuliani is still facing his biggest test yet- fighting criminal charges in the Georgia case accusing Mr Trump and 18 others of working to subvert the results of the 2020 election, won by Democrat Joe Biden, in that state.

Mr Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and said the case is politically motivated.

Jurors in the defamation case heard recordings of Mr Giuliani falsely accusing the election workers of sneaking in ballots in suitcases, counting ballots multiple times and tampering with voting machines.

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