{"id":21404,"date":"2023-12-14T03:39:40","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T09:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=21404"},"modified":"2023-12-14T03:39:45","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T09:39:45","slug":"georgia-election-worker-suing-rudy-giuliani-tells-jurors-that-his-lies-made-her-fear-for-her-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=21404","title":{"rendered":"Georgia election worker suing Rudy Giuliani tells jurors that his lies made her fear for her life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Scared for her life after Rudy Giuliani and other Donald Trump allies falsely accused her of fraud, former Georgia election worker Wandrea \u201cShaye\u201d Moss<\/u><\/a> told jurors Tuesday she seldom leaves her home, suffers from panic attacks and battles nightmares brought on by a barrage of threatening and racist messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wandrea \u201cShaye\u201d Moss took the witness stand on the second day of the defamation trial<\/u><\/a> that will determine how much the former New York City mayor will have to pay Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, for spreading a conspiracy theory that they rigged the state\u2019s 2020 election results. Moss noted that Giuliani just a day earlier \u2014 after the trial began \u2014 repeated the false claims about her and her mother, saying they were \u201cengaged in changing votes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI personally cannot repair my reputation at the moment because your client is still lying on me and ruining my reputation further,\u201d she told Giuliani\u2019s lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She sobbed as she testified that her life was turned upside down by the accusations, though they were quickly debunked by state officials. Her attorneys displayed a few of the graphic messages accusing her of treason and more that she received after Giuliani in December 2020 falsely accused workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta of tampering with ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Moss told jurors that she was a bubbly, outgoing person before the conspiracy theories began, but since then she\u2019s been stuck in a lonely cycle of crying and nightmares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\u201cI\u2019m most scared of my son finding me and or my mom hanging in front of our house on a tree having to get news at school that his mom was killed,\u201d the 39-year-old said. At one point in January 2021, she said, someone came to her grandmother\u2019s door threatening to make a \u201ccitizen arrest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost days I pray that God does not wake me up and I just disappear,\u201d Moss said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moss and her mother are seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages from Giuliani in the defamation case at the same time he\u2019s preparing to defend himself against criminal charges in a separate case in Georgia<\/u><\/a>. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty in the criminal case that accuses him and others of scheming to overturn Donald Trump\u2019s 2020 election loss in the state. He has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trial is playing out at Washington\u2019s federal courthouse months before Trump is scheduled to stand trial there on criminal charges accusing him of conspiring to subvert the will of voters<\/u><\/a> to stay in power. Giuliani is among Trump\u2019s unnamed \u201cco-conspirators\u201d<\/u><\/a> in the federal case but the former mayor has not been charged by special counsel Jack Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge overseeing the defamation case has already found Giuliani liable, and Giuliani has acknowledged in court that he made public comments<\/u><\/a> falsely claiming Freeman and Moss committed fraud while counting ballots. The only issue remaining in the trial is the amount of damages Giuliani will have to pay the women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The women\u2019s lawyers estimated that reputational damages could reach $47 million, and suggested emotional and punitive damages on top of that could be \u201ctens of millions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giuliani\u2019s lawyer has said any award should be much less, describing the damages the women are seeking as the \u201ccivil equivalent of the death penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defense attorney Joseph Sibley has argued there\u2019s no evidence Giuliani himself encouraged the harassment. While questioning Moss under cross-examination, Sibley said the right-wing website Gateway Pundit was the first to publish the surveillance video of the election workers rather than the former mayor. Sibley pressed Moss on the amount of money they are seeking, asking her, \u201cAre you going to repair your reputation or use the money to do something else?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moss, who previously testified before the U.S. House Committee<\/u><\/a> that investigated the Capitol attack, described being brought into her director\u2019s office after Giuliani made the claims during a Georgia legislative hearing. Moss thought her director wanted to recognize her for her election work or give her a promised promotion, she told jurors. Instead the mood in the room was somber, and soon she learned the real reason for the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am shown these videos, these lies, everything that had been going on that I had no clue about,\u201d Moss said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moss said she went home that night, scared and confused, and could only watch as the angry messages poured in. She got her long blonde hair cut off and dyed the next day, trying to reclaim some of her anonymity. She moved from the home she lived in to try to avoid the harassment, but people have found her new address, she told jurors. About two months ago, someone one mailed a picture of her face from the newspaper cut into shreds, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was afraid for my life. I literally felt like someone going to come and attempt to hang me and there\u2019s nothing that anyone will be able to do about it,\u201d Moss said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giuliani watched intently during Moss\u2019s testimony, frequently taking notes or conferring with his lawyer. Giuliani is expected to testify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moss\u2019 testimony came hours after the judge scolded Giuliani for comments made outside the federal courthouse Monday in which he insisted his claims about the women were true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I testify, the whole story will be definitively clear that what I said was true, and that, whatever happened to them \u2014 which is unfortunate about other people overreacting \u2014 everything I said about them is true,\u201d Giuliani told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giuliani added that Moss and Freeman were \u201cengaged in changing votes.\u201d When a reporter pushed back, saying there was no proof of that, Giuliani replied: \u201cYou\u2019re damn right there is. … Stay tuned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell warned Giuliani\u2019s lawyer that his client\u2019s remarks amounted to \u201cdefamatory statements about them yet again.\u201d The judge was incredulous, asking Giuliani\u2019s lawyer about the contradiction of his opening statements calling Freeman and Moss \u201cgood people\u201d but then the former mayor repeating unfounded allegations of voter fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow are we supposed to reconcile that?\u201d she asked the lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sibley conceded her point and told the judge he discussed the comments with his client, but added, \u201cI can\u2019t control everything he does.\u201d He also argued that the mayor\u2019s age and health concerns make long days in court challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Scared for her life after Rudy Giuliani and other Donald Trump allies falsely accused her of fraud, former Georgia election worker Wandrea \u201cShaye\u201d Moss told jurors Tuesday she seldom leaves her home, suffers from panic attacks and battles nightmares brought on by a barrage of threatening and racist messages. Wandrea \u201cShaye\u201d Moss took the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2923,2005,9533,1842,1238,2710],"class_list":["post-21404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-elections","tag-georgia","tag-information","tag-racism","tag-staff","tag-threats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21406,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21404\/revisions\/21406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}