WASHINGTON, United States - A federal jury began deliberations on Thursday to determine how much former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani should pay for defaming two Georgia poll workers with his false claims that they engaged in election fraud.
Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea "Shaye" Moss are seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages from Giuliani, who led Donald Trump's legal efforts to overturn the results of the November 2020 presidential election.
US District Judge Beryl Howell, in a ruling in August, found Giuliani liable of defaming Fulton County poll workers Freeman and Moss with his 2020 election lies on behalf of the former president.
Giuliani posted a video of the pair during ballot-counting that falsely accused the women of engaging in fraud, and made numerous other baseless claims about them.
Howell entered what is known as a default judgment against the 79-year-old Giuliani for his failure to comply with court demands that he turn over evidence in the case.
The man once known as "America's Mayor" had repeatedly said ahead of the civil defamation trial in Washington that he would testify in his own defense but he backed out of taking the stand at the last minute on Thursday.
The eight-person jury retired to begin deliberations following brief closing arguments during which a lawyer for Freeman, 64, and Moss, 39, asked the jurors to award each woman at least $24 million.
Freeman and Moss, who are Black, testified during the four-day trial that the baseless accusations of election fraud made against them by Giuliani had upended their lives and they were the target of vile racist threats.
The defamation case is just one of a number of legal challenges facing Giuliani, who has been indicted on racketeering charges in Georgia along with Trump and others for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in the southern state.
- 'False and misleading statements' -
Giuliani served as the mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001, guiding the city through the shock of the September 11 attacks, and was Trump's personal lawyer while he was in the White House.
Giuliani's license to practice law has been suspended in New York and in Washington for "false and misleading statements" he made as part of his efforts to upend the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, has also filed a lawsuit against Giuliani accusing him of computer fraud for accessing personal data on his computer.
In 2020, in a bid to embarrass Joe Biden ahead of the election, Giuliani and Trump allies circulated data from a laptop that Hunter Biden had abandoned at a computer repair shop in Delaware.