Shaye Moss, one of two Georgia poll workers who successfully sued Rudy Giuliani for the lies he spread about her after the 2020 election, testified Tuesday how Giuliani was “driving the bus” of conspiracies that forced her to move, change her appearance, and fear for her life.
Moss’ testimony came on day two of a trial that’s being held in Washington, D.C., to determine how much money Giuliani will owe her and her mother, Ruby Freeman, in damages.
Moss struggled to testify at times, reportedly burying her head in her hands and fighting back tears as she recounted the horrors she says she faced after Giuliani and other MAGA Republicans harassed her on baseless accusations she was stuffing ballots in Joe Biden’s favor during the 2020 election.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I’m just this whole new messed up person,” she said, according to The Hill.
Moss said the harassment came swiftly after Giuliani went public in Dec. 2020 with a video he claimed was proof that she, along with Freeman, had taken fake ballots from a suitcase and submitted them as real—an accusation that was honed in on by conspiracy theorists who made Moss’ life hell, but was quickly proven to be a farce.
That didn’t matter for many on the far right, however, Moss said. She testified that election deniers would send her pizzas with racist remarks, would ring her doorbell in the middle of the night, would leave her vile voicemails wishing her death, and that—on one occasion—some tried to a citizen’s arrest on her grandma.
Moss said she feared for her life regularly because of death threats, which included one anonymous caller saying she should be hanged for treason. The fear became so severe, she said she couldn’t walk to work without thinking someone would attack her and leave her “dying on the street,” and that she worried constantly that her son would come home one day to find her or her mother murdered.
She eventually quit her job with Fulton County, saying she felt like a “pariah” in the office, despite authorities finding she did no wrong. She said coworkers would leave the break room when she entered, and the harassment over the phone and online was too much to bear.
“I couldn’t do it anymore,” Moss said, according to Politico. “I felt like I was spiraling. It felt like some days I was in the bathroom crying most of the time. I had to leave because that’s—I couldn’t do my job like that. I couldn’t help anybody.”
Moss said she tried to find a new job and put the horrors of her old one in the past, but she couldn’t. The harassment took a toll on her family, too, she said, with her son flunking all of his classes as he coped with the move, stress, and hateful messages of his own—something she said made her feel like the “worst mom in the world.”
While it’s not what it once was, Moss said the harassment still exists. She testified about Giuliani’s comments Monday when he went on a tirade outside the courthouse to say that he still stands by his claims that Moss and Freeman committed election fraud.
“When I testify, the whole story will be 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,” Giuliani said outside the courthouse Monday. “Of course I don’t regret it. I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes.”
Those comments drew the ire of the trial’s judge, Beryl Howell, who threatened to hold Giuliani in contempt of court if he speaks similarly when he testifies later this week.
Giuliani’s attorney, Joe Sibley, conceded himself Tuesday that his client “likes to talk a lot, unfortunately,” telling Howell that he’ll try to keep Giuliani under control, but he can only do so much outside the courtroom.
After Tuesday’s hearing wrapped, Giuliani again addressed reporters, but only briefly spoke because he says his talking seems to “annoy the judge.” Despite this, he promised to divulge more in his YouTube show on Tuesday night.
Freeman and Moss are asking for as much as $43 million apiece in damages—a figure that Sibley said yesterday would be like a “death penalty” to Giuliani.
