{"id":26796,"date":"2023-12-16T05:53:50","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T10:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=26796"},"modified":"2023-12-16T05:53:50","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T10:53:50","slug":"rudy-giuliani-must-pay-more-than-148m-over-false-election-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/12\/16\/rudy-giuliani-must-pay-more-than-148m-over-false-election-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Rudy Giuliani must pay more than $148m over false election claims"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rudy Giuliani, a longtime associate of former President Donald Trump, has been ordered to pay more than $148m (\u00a3116m) to two women over false claims they tampered with votes in 2020.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A judge had already found Mr Giuliani liable of making defamatory claims about Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms Moss said after the verdict that the past few years had been “devastating”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The verdict came after a four-day trial to determine the penalty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Friday, the eight-person jury ordered $20m payments for defamation to be made to each victim.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They were also each awarded over $16m for emotional distress, the jury ruled. Another payment of $75m in punitive damages was ordered to be split between them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They had originally sought between $15m and $43m in damages from Mr Giuliani, Mr Trump’s former personal lawyer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Addressing reporters outside the court, Mr Giuliani said: “I don’t regret a damn thing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Michael Gottlieb, the lawyer for Ms Freeman and Ms Moss, said during closing arguments on Thursday that Mr Giuliani was “patient zero” of the misinformation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said that, during three days of evidence and testimony, the jury had “experienced a sliver of the unspeakable horror that [Ms Freeman and Ms Moss] suffered”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said a stiff financial penalty was necessary to “send a message” to Mr Giuliani and to “any other powerful figure with a platform”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Giuliani had been expected to testify in his own defence on Thursday, but those plans were abruptly cancelled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Honestly, I didn’t believe it would do any good,” Mr Giuliani said after the verdict on Friday, adding that he planned to appeal the “absurd” penalty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Giuliani is worth about $50m, according to an estimate by CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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His lawyers earlier urged the jury to be measured as they considered the penalty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They said that, although the former mayor of New York did spread lies after the 2020 presidential election, he was not as responsible – or as malicious – as lawyers for the two women argued.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In courtroom testimony in Washington DC on Wednesday, Ms Freeman recounted having to flee her home after a group of Trump supporters gathered outside and the FBI told her she was in danger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The incident happened after Mr Giuliani shared a video of them, which he falsely said showed evidence of ballot tampering.<\/p>\n

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“I took it as though they were going to hang me with their ropes on my street,” Ms Freeman said. “I was scared. I didn’t know if they were coming to kill me.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms Freeman said that she was left isolated by Mr Giuliani’s actions. Friends and acquaintances grew afraid to be linked to her, she said, and she has felt forced to live a life of seclusion because of lingering fears she will be recognised publicly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Addressing reporters on Friday, the women said that more lawsuits may be forthcoming for other public figures that had spread lies about them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“They must be held accountable too,” said Ms Freeman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Money will not solve all of my problems,” she continued. “I can’t move home, I will always have to be careful… I miss my home, I miss my neighbours and I miss my name.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The trial in Washington DC was just one of the legal cases Mr Giuliani is facing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In Georgia, Mr Giuliani faces criminal charges, including making false statements, in an election-subversion case against Mr Trump. Mr Giuliani has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A former business associate is also suing him for $10m over sexual harassment claims.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And according to recent court filings from the Internal Revenue Service, Mr Giuliani owes more than half a million dollars in federal taxes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In September, Mr Trump reportedly hosted a $100,000-a-plate dinner at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to raise money for a legal defence fund for Mr Giuliani.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Back in 2018, Mr Giuliani’s divorce case heard claims of his lavish spending. His ex-wife, Judith Giuliani, said that in a five-month period he spent nearly a million dollars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This was said to include $12,012 on cigars, $7,131 on fountain pens, $286,000 on an alleged mistress, $447,938 “for his own enjoyment” and $165,000 on travel.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rudy Giuliani, a longtime associate of former President Donald Trump, has been ordered to pay more than $148m (\u00a3116m) to two women over false claims they tampered with votes in 2020. A judge had already […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3],"tags":[285,5100,8164,6468],"class_list":{"0":"post-26796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-rudy-giuliani","12":"tag-us-election-2020","13":"tag-us-politics","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26798,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26796\/revisions\/26798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}