Rudy Giuliani, the former personal lawyer for former U.S. President Donald Trump, departs the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. District Courthouse on December 11, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images
Rudy Giuliani was sued again Monday by two former Georgia election workers who last week won a nearly $150 million defamation verdict against him for false statements that the lawyer made about them while representing Donald Trump after the 2020 election.
The latest federal lawsuit seeks an injunction to “permanently bar” Giuliani from making further defamatory statements against the mother and daughter, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, including by claiming they engaged in election fraud, illegal activity or other misconduct.
The suit says the former New York City mayor, despite being found civilly liable for defaming the women, “has engaged in, and is engaging in, a continuing course of repetitive false speech and harassment —specifically, repeating over and over the same lies that Plaintiffs engaged in election fraud during their service as election workers during the 2020 presidential election.”
The new civil complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
On Friday, a jury in that court found that Giuliani should be forced to pay more than $148 million to Freeman and Moss for falsely claiming they committed ballot fraud. The women testified at trial they received death threats and suffered emotional harm as a result of Giuliani’s claims, which were echoed by Trump and others.
Giuliani called the verdict “absurd,” and said he planned to appeal it. The verdict only addressed the question of monetary damages; the judge in the case earlier this year ruled that Giuliani had defamed the women with his statements.
The new lawsuit said that days before the verdict was delivered, and even afterward Giuliani “continued to spread the very same lies for which he has already been held liable.”
“Standing in front of the cameras, Defendant Giuliani stated that his forthcoming testimony would make: ‘definitively clear that what I said was true, and that, whatever happened to them — which is unfortunate about other people overreacting — everything I said about them is true,’ ” the complaint noted.
“When asked whether he regretted his actions, Defendant Giuliani stated: ‘Of course I don’t regret it . . . I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes,’ ” the complaint said. “Finally, when a reporter pointed out that there was ‘no proof of that,’ Defendant Giuliani stated, ‘You’re damn right there is . . . . Stay tuned.’ “
Despite saying he would testify, Giuliani did not take the witness stand at the trial.
He was criminally charged with Trump and other defendants in Georgia state court with conspiring to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in that state to President Joe Biden.
Giuliani and Trump have pleaded not guilty in that case, as have most of the other defendants.