Rudy Giuliani has appealed a jury verdict that ordered him to pay $148 million to two Georgia election officials for defaming them after the 2020 election.
Mr. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy days after the verdict was handed down in December, facing a lawsuit from the Board of Elections and a stunning lawsuit from the former New York City mayor who once represented former President Trump as his personal attorney. Efforts to recover the amount have been frozen.
He formally filed the complaint hours after a bankruptcy judge lifted the freeze on the defamation suit and allowed Giuliani’s lawyers to continue representing him. Notice of appeal Late Tuesday.
“We very much appreciate the judge’s prompt consideration of this matter and look forward to proceeding accordingly,” Giuliani’s political adviser Ted Goodman said in a statement the same day after the bankruptcy judge’s ruling. “I am doing so,” he said.
A jury of eight Washington, D.C., residents found two candidates, Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, the focus of the Trump campaign’s baseless claims of massive voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. ordered Giuliani to pay $148 million to his staff.
Giuliani has spread falsehoods that the mother-daughter duo were involved in massive voter fraud, and the accusations center on video footage showing them working at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena on election night. Ta.
The verdict came after a four-day trial in which Freeman and Moss testified and faced a barrage of racist and violent threats following accusations from Giuliani and other Trump allies. and detailed to the jury how their lives had been turned upside down.
Giuliani also updated his opinion. Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law On Tuesday, he argued to the judge who oversaw the recent trial that the comments in question were opinions protected by the First Amendment and were not made with actual malice.
A judge previously rejected Mr. Giuliani’s argument that those claims and the expert testimony of election officials were inadmissible.
“The court should have invalidated the testimony and instructed the jury to ignore it. Based on this error, the jury received exorbitant damages for defamation based on expert testimony that should not have been admitted.” We have remanded the restitution judgment,” Giuliani’s attorney, Joseph Sibley, said in a court filing.
Alternatively, Mr. Sibley asked that his client receive a new trial.
Prior to the trial, Giuliani was found liable for failure to disclose evidence. The jury simply decided how much he had to pay.
“The absurdity of these numbers underscores the absurdity of the entire case,” Giuliani said after the verdict, adding to his baseless claims about the two women.
Even if his appeal fails, it remains unclear how much money the mother-daughter duo could recover from Giuliani.
Mr. Freeman and Mr. Moss hold the largest debts on a list of notable creditors in the former Trump lawyer’s ongoing bankruptcy case.
Other creditors are primarily other people and companies that have sued Mr. Giuliani. The list also includes the president’s son Hunter Biden. his Smartmatic and Dominion voting equipment companies; Mr Giuliani’s former lawyers are suing him over unpaid legal fees.
Mr. Giuliani filed an appeal Tuesday after a bankruptcy judge approved a plan to continue paying Mr. Sibley to represent the former New York City mayor.
Mr. Sibley said in a sworn statement that he had agreed to receive a one-time payment of $50,000 from two third-party funds to support Mr. Giuliani’s legal battle to resolve his appeal. Giuliani himself is prohibited from discharging funds to preserve his assets for his campaign officials and other creditors.
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