Rudy Giuliani liable for defaming Georgia election workers, hit with sanctions by judge

A federal judge on Wednesday issued a default judgment against former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and ordered him to pay sanctions of nearly $133,000 in a civil conspiracy lawsuit by two Georgia election workers he had claimed mishandled ballots in the 2020 presidential contest.

Judge Beryl Howell sanctioned Giuliani for failing to comply with her orders endorsing the demands for electronically stored documents and other evidence sought in the case by lawyers for the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea’ ArShaye Moss.

Howell blasted Giuliani for “willful … misconduct,” in failing to turn over the requested information as part of the legal process known as discovery, and for giving “only lip service to compliance with his discovery obligations.”

“The bottom line is that Giuliani has refused to comply with his discovery obligations and thwarted plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea’ ArShaye Moss’s procedural rights to obtain any meaningful discovery in this case,” Howell wrote in a 57-page opinion.

The judge also ordered attorneys for Giuliani and the two women to propose three possible dates for trial in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on the question of how much money in compensatory and punitive damages he should be ordered to pay them as a result of the default judgment.

Giuliani was indicted two weeks ago with former President Donald Trump and 17 co-defendants by a grand jury in Atlanta on charges related to an alleged conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s loss in 2020 to President Joe Biden.

That indictment details an effort by Trump, Giuliani and others to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory in Georgia, an effort that included making false claims about the work of Freeman and Moss, who are mother and daughter.

The women had sued Giuliani in 2021 with claims of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy.

Giuliani in a court filing last month conceded, for the purposes of the lawsuit, that he had made “false” statements about the women that were “defamatory per se.”

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