Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and a longtime ally to former President Donald Trump, is now expected to face another trial alongside the eventual trial proceedings already coming from his involvement in the Georgia criminal case against Trump and many others.
On Wednesday, federal Judge Beryl Howell issued a default judgment against Giuliani in a defamation lawsuit from former election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother and daughter who served during the last presidential election in the Atlanta area. The two were named in debunked conspiracy theories about systematic election fraud in the 2020 race spread by Giuliani, Trump, and others, and the case that Freeman and Moss brought against Giuliani ended in default judgment against him stemming from his evident failure to comply with the discovery process. Discovery, in this context, is a routine period before trial in which both sides can assemble information potentially relevant to the case.
The default judgment, imposing liability on Giuliani, sets the rhetorical stage for a future trial on specifically the level of financial penalties to impose on him, and journalist Kaitlan Collins from CNN is among those spotlighting the substantial scope those costs for Giuliani could reach: “A judge has determined Giuliani forfeits the defamation lawsuit brought by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. A trial to determine the amount of damages he’ll be held liable for will be set later, per @kpolantz, and could amount to thousands, if not millions, of dollars.”
Giuliani is already under renewed obligations, including financial penalties that together total more than $130,000, covering certain legal expenses incurred by Freeman and Moss while dealing with Giuliani dragging things out. Some of the materials for discovery he’s now still expected to produce were originally due by the end of June! Howell also noted in her August 30 order that jurors at the trial to determine the level of financial damages could be told to make a negative inference around Giuliani’s delay to pay the portion of that $130,000 already due months ago.
As a “sanction” for the lapse, “the jury will be instructed that they must, when determining an appropriate sum of punitive damages, infer that he is intentionally trying to hide relevant discovery about his financial assets for the purpose of artificially deflating his net worth,” unless Giuliani satisfies certain continuing obligations of his around discovery, according to the judge. In that scenario, the “mandatory” instruction for the jury “may be converted to a permissive one.”
