WASHINGTON (CN) — Rudy Giuliani's defamation trial nearly came to a close on Thursday, after a jury heard closing arguments in the case brought by two former Georgia election workers whom Giuliani accused of committing election fraud during the 2020 election.
The eight-person jury must determine whether the former New York City mayor will have to pay Ruby Freeman and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss up to $43 million in damages for defamatory claims.
Over the course of the week, jurors have heard Freeman and Moss testify about the vulgar, racist and terrifying threats they received after they were targeted by Giuliani following the 2020 election.
The jury deliberated for about three hours on Thursday but did not come to a verdict. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, instructed the jury to return Friday morning to complete their deliberation and come to a decision.
Giuliani, formerly known as “America’s Mayor” following the 9/11 attacks, had accused Freeman and Moss of smuggling suitcases filled with fraudulent ballots into the State Farm Arena in Atlanta to steal the election for President Joe Biden.
He claimed the plaintiffs, both Black women, were passing around flash drives “like vials of heroin or cocaine” that supposedly would have helped them change ballots. Freeman revealed in her testimony Wednesday the items they were passing were in fact ginger mints.
Giuliani ultimately decided not to testify Thursday morning after previously indicating that he would do so on his way out of the Elijah Barrett Prettyman Courthouse following Wednesday’s proceedings.
His attorney, Joseph Sibley IV of Camara Sibley, explained to the eight-person jury that he made the decision after hearing Freeman’s emotional testimony on Wednesday. In that testimony, she described feeling homeless as she moved between Airbnbs during the two months in which the FBI advised her to avoid her home.
According to the plaintiffs’ initial complaint, a crowd of Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, gathered outside Freeman’s home in Georgia, equipped with signs and bullhorns. Freeman had left the day prior on the FBI’s advice and did not return for two months until she was told it was safe.
Sibley declined to ask Freeman any questions Wednesday for cross-examination.
“We feel like these women have been through enough,” Sibley said at the beginning of his closing arguments Thursday.
Michael Gottlieb, attorney for Freeman and Moss of firm Willkie Farr, was unconvinced by Sibley’s assertion and argued to the jury that Giuliani was responsible for all that the plaintiffs have been through.
Any compassion on his part today, Gottlieb said, does not erase the fact that he showed none of it when he made Freeman and Moss the faces of his election conspiracy theories and destroyed their lives.
“Giuliani and his co-conspirators didn’t really care about the bodies left behind,” Gottlieb said, arguing that Giuliani viewed Freeman and Moss as “ordinary and expendable."
"He didn’t see them as human beings," he said.
He added that Giuliani had scapegoated Freeman and Moss to support Trump’s bid to remain president despite his electoral defeat to Biden.
“He has no right to offer defenseless civil servants to a public mob in order to overturn an election,” Gottlieb said.
In August, Howell ruled Giuliani had lost by default for refusing to turn over financial documents before the trial that would have revealed the full reach of his defamatory comments and his financial status.
The ruling sharply narrowed any sort of defense Sibley could make, as he could not deny his client’s statements were defamatory and had harmed Freeman and Moss.
He instead argued to the jury that his client could not be held solely responsible for the harm the plaintiffs suffered, pointing to a fringe right-wing website, The Gateway Pundit, which he said was the first to explicitly name Freeman and Moss in connection with Giuliani’s claims.
Sibley noted that the plaintiffs had sued the site first on Dec. 3, 2021, while the suit against Giuliani was filed Dec. 23, 2021. The litigation against Gateway Pundit has yet to go to trial in court in St. Louis.
Sibley pleaded with the jury to show his client compassion and remember him as a great man who united the nation as “America’s Mayor” rather than a remorseless conspiracy theorist.
“I know he’s done things that are wrong, I know these women were harmed and I’m not asking for a hall pass, but this is a man who’s done great things," Sibley said. "Although he hasn’t done great things lately, I want you to remember this is a good man."
The defamation case is only the latest chapter in Giuliani’s legal woes. He also faces disbarment in Washington, racketeering charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia and his inclusion as an unnamed co-conspirator in Trump’s Washington indictment.
Giuliani has pleaded not guilty in the Georgia case — where he faces several racketeering charges under the same act he popularized in his prosecution New York mobsters in the 80s — and has not been charged in Washington.
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