The two former Georgia election workers who won an almost $150 million defamation judgment against former Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani want him held in civil contempt for continuing to falsely accuse them of committing election fraud in the 2020 election.
In papers filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., attorneys for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss say Giuliani has continued to make false claims about them online despite a court-approved deal in May where he “agreed to be bound by a permanent injunction prohibiting him from repeating the same or similar statements to the statements adjudged to be false and defamatory.”
“It took only six months for Mr. Giuliani to resume his defamatory campaign” against the mother and daughter, the filing said, including making false claims about them on his livestreamed “America’s Mayor Live” show earlier this month. Among the comments he made were that they “quadruple” counted votes and used “hard drives” to “fix the machines,” according to the filing.
The filing said those claims are “unambiguous violations of the Consent Injunction, and the Court should hold him in civil contempt.” The pair are seeking an unspecified amount in fines for the violations, and for Giuliani to be put on notice that he’ll be fined for any future violations. “Fixing the appropriate sanction — particularly fixing an amount sufficiently ‘calibrated’ to coerce Giuliani’s compliance with the Consent Injunction, in light of his demonstrated willingness to repeatedly violate court orders — may require factfinding by this Court after an evidentiary hearing,” the filing said.
A representative for Giuliani, Ted Goodman, called the motion “a dishonest and duplicitous attack meant to deprive Mayor Rudy Giuliani of his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.”
“The ongoing lawfare against Mayor Giuliani must end,” he said in a statement.
Giuliani was found liable for defaming the pair during his efforts on Trump’s behalf to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Freeman and Moss said the false accusations forced them out of their jobs and led to a torrent of racist death threats.
A jury awarded them $148 million after a damages trial last year. A judge later reduced the award, which Giuliani is appealing, to $146 million.
Giuliani filed for bankruptcy afterwards, but that case was dismissed after he repeatedly failed to turn over required financial information.
Freeman and Moss filed suit in New York looking to enforce their judgment earlier this year, and their attorneys accused Giuliani of slow-walking the surrender of his assets and again failing to turn over necessary filing information. Giuliani began surrendering at least some of his assets in the past week, including luxury watches and a 1980 Mercedes-Benz that once belonged to Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall, according to court filings.
The turnover came after one of the workers’ attorneys, Aaron Nathan, told U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman that Giuliani had surreptitiously cleaned out items from his New York apartment that were supposed to be handed over to his client and sent them to a storage facility. The attorneys said they are now reviewing the contents of the storage facility, but there are still assets Giuliani has not turned over.
“Plaintiff has not turned over any cash, and does not appear to have any intention of turning over any cash beyond a few thousand dollars in one account,” they said in a court filing this week.
Giuliani is challenging their claim to a limited number of items, including his Florida condo and Yankees World Series rings that he says he gifted to his son. Those challenges will be the subject of what’s expected to be a brief trial starting on Jan. 16, but Giuliani is seeking to have that date pushed back because of unspecified “inauguration events” ahead of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Moss and Freeman’s attorneys urged the judge to stick with the current trial date, which was set last month. “Mr. Giuliani’s preference for attending an event three days prior to the inauguration itself does not remotely constitute good cause to adjourn this trial,” they wrote.
