Rudy Giuliani loses bid to dismiss $148 million judgment in Georgia election worker case

Giuliani was ordered to pay the $148 defamation verdict to two election workers in December, after falsely claiming they participated in election fraud during the 2020 election.

By Misty Severi

Published: April 15, 2024 6:52pm

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani lost his effort to dismiss a $148 million judgment against him on Monday, with a judge rejecting claims that evidence in the case was one-sided.

Giuliani was ordered to pay the $148 million defamation verdict to election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in December, after falsely claiming they participated in election fraud during the 2020 election, according to ABC News. He filed for bankruptcy one week later.

"Giuliani's renewed motion urging this Court to reverse its prior findings and rulings and to override the jury's considered verdict on the basis of five threadbare arguments falls well short of persuading that 'the evidence and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom are so one-sided that reasonable men and women could not have reached a verdict in [plaintiffs'] favor,'" U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell said in the ruling.

The former Trump attorney had sought either the dismissal or overturning of the verdict after a bankruptcy judge in February permitted him to make such a move. Giuliani’s attorneys argued that his statements about the two workers, a mother and daughter duo, were protected by the First Amendment, and were made without any malice, USA Today reported.

The bid to overturn the ruling comes even after Giuliani conceded last July that he made “false” and “defamatory statements” about the two women. They had claimed they were harassed after Giuliani's remarks.

"I will always have to be careful about where I go and who I will be able to share my name with," Freeman, said in December, according to ABC.

Investigators with the Georgia Secretary of State's office testified in the trial that the two election workers had returned to the State Farm Arena in Fulton County, late on Nov. 3, 2020, in order to help expedite the process of counting the votes, after the secretary of state had extended the hours. They did not return to rig the votes as Giuliani had suggested.