A federal judge on Wednesday ruled Rudy Giuliani liable in a defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers who say they were falsely accused of fraud, entering a default judgment against the former New York City mayor and ordering him to pay tens of thousands of dollars in lawyers’ fees.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said punishment was necessary because Giuliani had ignored his duty as a defendant to turn over information requested by election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea’ ArShaye Moss, as part of their lawsuit.
Their complaint from December 2021 accused Giuliani, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers and a confidant of the former Republican president, of defaming them with accusations of fraud while counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
The ruling compounds the legal jeopardy for Giuliani at a time when he and Trump are both among 19 defendants were charged with numerous felonies by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis related to their 2020 election fraud claims.
It also creates the potential for a massive financial penalty for Giuliani as the case proceeds to a federal trial in Washington to determine damages he may be liable for.
He will have a “final opportunity” to produce the requested information, known under the law as discovery, or face additional sanctions if he fails to do so. In the meantime, Howell said, Giuliani and his business entities must pay more than $130,000 in attorneys’ fees.
Giuliani has blamed his failure to produce the requested documents on the fact that his devices were seized by federal investigations in 2021 as a part of a separate Justice Department investigation that did not produce any criminal charges.
Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, said in a statement that the judge’s ruling “is a prime example of the weaponization of our justice system, where the process is the punishment. This decision should be reversed, as Mayor Giuliani is wrongly accused of not preserving electronic evidence that was seized and held by the FBI.”
Giuliani and others alleged during a Georgia legislative subcommittee hearing in December 2020 that surveillance video from State Farm Arena showed the election workers committing election fraud.
The two women claimed they suffered harassment after the videos circulated online.
The Associated Press contributed to this article