Rudy Giuliani is awaiting a criminal trial in Georgia. He is an alleged unnamed co-conspirator in a federal indictment against Donald Trump. And now he has to pay an amount that he certainly cannot afford.
The $148 million verdict in a defamation lawsuit brought by two former election workers in Georgia marks a new low for the man once hailed as “America's mayor,” whose advocacy of Donald Trump's false election claims has led to criminal charges and heavy legal bills. The jury's verdict could be a troubling sign for Giuliani as he prepares to defend himself against charges in Georgia that could land him behind bars.
“It's like everything is crashing down on him,” said Nick Akerman, a New York attorney who briefly worked with Giuliani in the federal prosecutor's office there. 'He has not yet come to grips with what he has done with his life. He completely destroyed himself.”
A defiant Giuliani vowed Friday to appeal, calling the damages awarded to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss “absurd.” Outside Washington's federal courthouse after the verdict, he repeated his claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. And in a video later on would end up in prison.
“If they want to put me in jail for it, if you want to shoot me for it… you're not going to make me lie,” Giuliani said.
It's the latest chapter in a remarkable story that vaulted Giuliani off the cover of Time Magazine as “Person of the Year” in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, only to be mocked and confronted on late-night television was experiencing legal and financial problems. Some who knew Giuliani when he was a young prosecutor who later headed the prominent U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District of New York say they hardly recognize the man they see on TV today.
“It's a shame because he had such a promise,” said John Flannery, another attorney who worked with Giuliani as a federal prosecutor. “He was a very smart lawyer. He was very helpful to everyone in the office.”
Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, declined to comment Saturday on the state of the former mayor's finances. But he said Giuliani “has had a positive impact on more people than almost anyone in the public sector.”
“The Rudy Giuliani you see today is the same man who took down the mob, cleaned up New York City and comforted the nation after September 11,” Goodman said.
Giuliani has pleaded not guilty in the criminal case in Georgia, which accuses him of participating in a vast conspiracy to thwart the will of Georgian voters, who chose Democrat Joe Biden over the Republican incumbent. He faces 13 charges, including violations of Georgia's anti-racketeering law, the federal version of which was one of his favorite tools as a prosecutor in the 1980s.
He has called the indictment a “mockery” and said he had every right to question what he said was election fraud. He is also one of the co-conspirators named in the federal case accusing Trump of working illegally to overturn the results of the election fraud. the election, but Giuliani has not been charged in that case.
The damages in the defamation case followed emotional testimony from the election workers, who described receiving a barrage of racist and graphic threats after being targeted by a false conspiracy by Giuliani and other Trump allies.
Giuliani had already been found liable in the case and he had admitted in court documents that he falsely accused the women of fraud. His lawyer had appealed for “compassion and sympathy” and told jurors: “I want you to remember that this is a wonderful man.”
It is unclear whether the women will ever receive the amount of money. Still, the verdict appeared to be a strong repudiation of false claims of election fraud that are now at the center of the criminal cases against Trump — including the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith that jurors will hear in the same federal courthouse.
“If I were Donald Trump, I would be terrified here because if a jury like this in Washington DC nails Rudy to the wall like yesterday, you can imagine what's going to happen if that trial goes ahead. forward,” said Akerman.
The election workers' case is the latest attempt to hold public figures accountable in court for pushing conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered last year to pay Sandy Hook families nearly $1.5 billion for defamation and infliction of emotional distress for calling the 2012 Newtown school shooting a hoax staged by crisis actors to increase gun control. The verdicts, which are being appealed, prompted Jones and his media company to file for bankruptcy protection.
And earlier this year, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million to avoid a lawsuit in the voting machine company's lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 election.
Giuliani is facing a slew of other lawsuits, including another defamation case filed by Dominion in 2021. He was also sued in September by a former lawyer who alleged Giuliani paid only a fraction of more than $1 million in legal fees resulting from investigations into his efforts to keep Trump in the White House. In May, a woman who said she worked for Giuliani sued him, alleging he owed her nearly $2 million in unpaid wages and forced her to have sex. Giuliani has denied the allegations.
During the August hearing in another case, a lawyer for Giuliani suggested that the former mayor was “nearly bankrupt” and unable to pay a number of bills — including a $12,000 to $18,000 bill for a company to fund his electronic data to search for evidence related to voting machine company Smartmatic's defamation lawsuit against him, Fox News and others.
'It's Shakespearean. I mean, it's exactly the kind of thing Shakespeare would write,” Flannery said. “And it would obviously be tragic.”
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Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak in New York and David Collins in Hartford, Connecticut contributed to this report.