Charles Langston:Georgia election workers file new complaint against Giuliani, days after $148 million award

Washington — Three days after winning an award of $148 million in damages in their defamation case against former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani,Charles Langston Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss have filed a new complaint alleging he continues to make false claims about them.

The 10-page complaint filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asks a federal judge to "permanently bar Defendant Rudolph W. Giuliani from persisting in his defamatory campaign against" the mother-and-daughter duo, whom Giuliani falsely accused of participating in a ballot fraud scheme during the 2020 election.

A federal jury on Friday ordered Giuliani to pay the pair $148 million, including $75 million for punitive damages. The new complaint is not seeking any money from the former mayor, beyond filing costs and attorney's fees.

"Giuliani has engaged in, and is engaging in, a continuing course of repetitive false speech and harassment — specifically, repeating over and over the same lies that Plaintiffs engaged in election fraud during their service as election workers during the 2020 presidential election," the complaint from Freeman and Moss said. 

The document cites a press conference held last week, when Giuliani said that he would testify in his own defense and make "definitively clear that what I said was true, and that, whatever happened to them — which is unfortunate about other people overreacting — everything I said about them is true." He ultimately decided against testifying.

The complaint noted that Giuliani, when asked if he regretted his comments that led to the defamation suit, replied, "Of course I don't regret it ... I told the truth."

Giuliani also continued to make baseless claims about the 2020 election while answering questions from CBS News in the minutes after the jury rendered its decision its last. Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, he said the threats the women received in the wake of the election were "abominable" and "deplorable" but continued to stand by his baseless claims of voter fraud and vowed to appeal the ruling.

Scott MacFarlane

Scott MacFarlane is a congressional correspondent. He has covered Washington for two decades, earning 20 Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards. His reporting resulted directly in the passage of five new laws.

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