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Rudy Giuliani talks to reporters before the Republican National Convention, on July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee (AP Photo/Paul Sancya).
The mother and daughter who have repeatedly sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation over his alleged repeat references to them have asked a judge to add recent incidents to their growing case in Washington, D.C.
In a Friday morning filing, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss filed a notice of additional information to support their current effort to have Giuliani held in civil contempt.
The latest motion is all but literally last-minute; the civil contempt hearing began at 10:30 a.m. EST on Friday.
Freeman and Moss say the new information came to their attention “as they were preparing for the hearing” on contempt.
That hearing will determine whether the former New York City mayor will be held in contempt and subsequently sanctioned for allegedly violating the terms of an injunction by defaming them over and over.
In the filing, the mother and daughter allege two late November 2024 broadcasts contain yet more such defamatory incidents.
From the filing, at length [emphasis in original]:
On November 19, 2024, Defendant Giuliani aired another episode of America’s Mayor Live, titled America’s Mayor Live (542): Live Coverage of Trump Transition 2024: Day 14 where he stated “You know the tapes in at the Arena … at the State Arena in Atlanta … uh they threw out all the people that were observing the vote count, uh closed the doors. All of a sudden um these two ladies and several others shoo everybody out. Everybody’s gone. Close down the Arena. … They make one more casing of the joint, now this is not on the tape anymore, used to be, casing of the joint and then all of a sudden they have a covered over table that uh hadn’t been used all day to take any ballots out and when nobody was around they pull up, pull up the and they take five bins out and turn them over to the people counting and you can see them quadruple counting.”
The motion goes on to cite a Nov. 21, 2024, broadcast where Giuliani allegedly comments on the injunction itself by saying: “[T]o hell with it, the minute they started criticizing me I said it’s over … so the hell with it … I mean Jesus there, it’s like a little ridiculous. I have a video showing them counting votes. I have a video.”
The underlying case differs from, but is closely related to, the original $148 million defamation verdict the pair won against Giuliani for spreading lies about them in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
That blockbuster victory — which is currently the subject of intense litigation and concomitant contempt proceedings in New York state — came in early December 2023. But, the former Georgia election workers say, Giuliani continued to peddle false comments and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that referenced their work in Atlanta.
So, in late December 2023, Freeman and Moss asked the court that oversaw the original case to issue an injunction that would “permanently” bar Giuliani from defaming them. They accuse him of continuing to lob unsubstantiated falsehoods and peddle pro-Trump conspiracy theories about never-proven electoral fraud even after being found liable for the same.
The onetime federal prosecutor agreed to abide by an injunction prohibiting him from making any further claims Freeman or Moss had “engaged in wrong-doing in connection with the 2020 presidential election.”
Still, Freeman and Moss allege, the defamation continued apace.
In late November 2024, the mother-daughter duo asked U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell to hold Giuliani in contempt for allegedly, and repeatedly, violating the injunction.
Friday’s eleventh-hour filing comes as a pointed rejoinder to a filing by the defendant earlier this year.
In a Jan. 2, memorandum in opposition, Giuliani’s attorney argued:
If Giuliani were bent on violating the Consent Judgment, Plaintiffs and their army of lawyers would have found more than the handful of statements they themselves concede only ‘indirectly’ relate to Plaintiffs. In the overall context of Giuliani’s substantial podcast output, the few seconds Giuliani has devoted to his opinions in the Freeman I case represent, if anything, a de minimis violation.
The latest filing is an effort to rise to the occasion and argue that Giuliani has allegedly been quite clear about Freeman and Moss.
“Plaintiffs submit that this information is relevant to the Court’s consideration of the Motion, particularly in light of Defendant’s argument,” the filing argues — directly referencing the above memo.
