AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Georgia election workers whom a jury just awarded nearly $150 million in their defamation case against Rudy Giuliani, have now filed another lawsuit against the former New York City mayor for his “repetitive false speech and harassment.” This time, however, they are not seeking monetary damages (other than the attorney’s fees and costs for filing the lawsuit) — they just want him to finally shut up.
The mother-daughter pair of Freeman and Moss were election workers during the 2020 election and were targeted by former President Donald Trump and his allies who baselessly accused them by name of helping steal the election from him.
In the trial for their defamation lawsuit against Giuliani — which focused only on the issue of damages after Giuliani conceded key elements of the case and the judge issued a default judgment — both women testified regarding the deluge of harassment, racist attacks, and death threats they received after being falsely accused of committing election fraud, including being afraid to use their real names, having to flee their homes, and having to quit their jobs as election workers.
Giuliani was defiant in interviews during the course of the trial, even shocking many with his comments that repeated his false claims that Freeman and Moss “were engaging in changing votes.”
The women have now filed a new lawsuit in response to Giuliani “persisting in his defamatory campaign” against them. The 10-page complaint, which you can read here, alleges that the man once revered as America’s Mayor “has engaged in, and is engaging in, a continuing course of repetitive false speech and harassment—specifically, repeating over and over the same lies that Plaintiffs engaged in election fraud during their service as election workers during the 2020 presidential election.”
From the complaint (emphasis in original; citations omitted):
Defendant Giuliani continues to spread the very same lies for which he has already been held liable in the Freeman I action. For example, on December 11, 2023, Defendant Giuliani held an impromptu press conference before a gaggle of reporters. Standing in front of the cameras, Defendant Giuliani stated that his forthcoming testimony would make: “definitively clear that what I said was true, and that, whatever happened to them—which is unfortunate about other people overreacting—everything I said about them is true.” When asked whether he regretted his actions, Defendant Giuliani stated: “Of course I don’t regret it . . . I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes.” Finally, when a reporter pointed out that there was “no proof of that,” Defendant Giuliani stated, “You’re damn right there is . . . . Stay tuned.”
On December 15, 2023, just hours after the jury in Freeman I returned a $148 million verdict against him, Defendant Giuliani appeared from Washington, D.C. for a live interview on Newsmax, in which he repeatedly asserted, either directly or at minimum by implication, that he was in possession of video evidence demonstrating the truth of his allegations against Plaintiffs.3 Defendant Giuliani explained that he was unable to present evidence at trial of “all the videos at the time” showing “what happened at the arena.” Those statements at minimum falsely implied to the reasonable viewer that Mr. Giuliani possesses video evidence that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss engaged in election fraud in Georgia during the 2020 Presidential Election.
The complaint goes on to allege causes of action against Giuliani for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress and seeks as relief an injunction barring him “from making or publishing, or causing to be made or published, further statements repeating any and all false claims that Plaintiffs engaged in election fraud, illegal activity, or misconduct of any kind during or related to the 2020 presidential election; that either Plaintiff was arrested for any such fraud, illegal activity, or misconduct; and/or that either Plaintiff had any record of engaging in election fraud or related illegal activity or misconduct prior to the 2020 presidential election,” plus attorney’s fees and costs.
“Defendant Giuliani’s statements, coupled with his refusal to agree to refrain from continuing to make such statements, make clear that he intends to persist in his campaign of targeted defamation and harassment,” the complaint argues. “It must stop. In these unique circumstances, the proper remedy is a targeted injunction barring Defendant Giuliani from continuing to repeat the very falsehoods about Plaintiffs that have already been found and held, conclusively, to be defamatory.”
