Four.
For Ruby Freeman,
$16 million for defamation.
Also for Ruby Freeman.
$20 million for emotional distress
for Shane Moss.
$16 million for defamation.
I'm approximating here
for emotional distress, for shame, loss,
$20 million.
And then on top of that, $75 million
in punitive damages.
Do I have that right?
That is what I'm seeing as well
as our reporting at this time.
One of the things to remember here
is that punitive damages can skyrocket
in cases like this.
They are something that really
the jury has a lot of
of breath to go with.
Although there are
there are laws that say
it can't go more than three or four times
the amount in the other damages
that are assessed.
But this is more than $148 million.
That's an astonishing amount of money.
And this is against one man.
This is Rudy Giuliani,
a person, not a company,
not a group of people.
One person for the statements
that he made after the 2020 election.
One man
who almost single handedly
ruined the reputations
and lives of these two women,
we should say.
I that I know. You know.
So, again, this is the lawyers
originally asked for $48 million
for Ruby Friedman and Kate Moss,
and they ultimately got $148 million.
Really shocking.
Let me bring in Evan Perez now.
Evan, really,
I guess not surprising in one sense
that the jury was asked to send a message
right to these election
liars who are so careless and reckless
not only with the truth,
but with the reputations
of innocent individuals
like these two election workers,
one of whom was just a volunteer.
But that is an astounding figure.
I'm not sure that it will hold up
on appeal right.
But it is an astounding
figure, $148 million for the two of them.
It truly is, Jake.
And one of the things that,
you know, look,
one of the things
about the American system right now,
there's a lot of criticism
about our system.
But one of the things is
that you can go to court
and put a number
on the cost of these lies
that that that Rudy Giuliani and
and Sidney Powell and Donald Trump
and everybody around
them were parroting
and were frankly
just using as a cudgel against
not only Ruby Freeman, but against
so many other people
in the
in the wake of the former
president's losing the election in 2020.
And what this does
is that you have a jury
that has actually put a number
to that cost just in the case of of of
of of Rudy Giuliani
and in this case, it's
it's just over $148 million is what
the costs of that is.
And and, look, I mean,
the two women there
testified to the
to the January six committee.
They testified to this court.
They've told their story
of what this cost them.
They can't go to
to the store without being fearful.
They've gotten all these threats.
You've heard
some of those awful, awful
certainly
the audio of some of those threats
that they received.
And they're not alone. Right.
Because the other the other thing is that
this is this case
is just
a small reminder of of the threats
that are being felt
by election workers, by state
officials, by people around the country.
Anyone who is associated with
with elections
has been on the receiving
end of these types of threats.
And people have to fear for their lives.
And so
some people in this case,
these two women, have decided
that they are going to court
and fight back.
And the cost that we now know
from a jury that comes with
that is $148 million.
I can read you just another
just another summation of these numbers
for defamation for Ruby Freeman, $16.1
million for four
for Seamus, for just under $17 million.
Emotional distress for Ruby
Freeman, $20 million
and $20 million also for Seamus.
And then the punitive damages
altogether, $75 million,
according to this jury
here in Washington.
And so put together again, $148 million,
something that Rudy
that that Rudy Giuliani
has publicly said
in various other litigation.
He doesn't have the money to pay.
He we know that he has,
Jake, has put on the market
some of his real estate.
He had real estate in New York
and Florida
that he has been trying to sell
all, of course,
in the middle
of some other messy
financial dealings
that that Rudy has had.
He was trying to get rid of some
other assets
because of a rather
messy personal life
that he's had over the last few years.
So all together,
the question is how much of this
these two women will be able to recover
to try to mend the damage
that has been done?
It's not clear It's going to be.
One of the things that happens now
is that, Jake,
the these two ladies
are going to have to hire lawyers
to go chase
after these assets around the country,
wherever Rudy has them, to try to attach
their their their claims to it
and be able to collect it.
It's not over at all
just because of this jury verdict today.
Yeah.
And we should note,
I mean, earlier
this year, Fox had to pay $787.5
million, right, to dominion voting
because of the lies
that their anchors, hosts
and guests
constantly spewed during the same period.
It turns out these lies
and defamatory comments
are ending up to be really expensive.
Right, people?
And we should add, by the way,
the person at the center of this,
Donald Trump. Right.
Has so far been able to just
use a lot of donations
from average people around the country.
He's he's used to 2020 election
and his effort to overturn
that as a real huge
fundraising gain for himself.
And they've
they've they've collected millions
and millions and millions of dollars
and that has funded some of his loss,
some of his legal costs and so on.
So he hasn't really had to shoulder
much of this himself.
He's had donors
around the country
actually paying for some of this.
So the person at the center
of all those lies
hasn't really had to pay
those costs in the same way.
Again, defamation, $16 million a piece.
Emotional distress.
$20 million apiece.
Punitive damages, $75 million.
Let's bring in
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig
to explain this all.
Elie,
for those of us who are not attorneys,
if you could explain the difference
between defamation money,
emotional distress money
and punitive damage money.
Sure, Jake.
So, first of all,
any way you cut this up,
this is a massive verdict.
This is a real statement by the jury.
So, first of all,
when we talk about defamation damages
and that totals out to about $16
million for each of these plaintiffs,
that means the damage
to their reputation.
What you're trying to do with
this number is make them whole.
It's impossible, obviously,
to put a scientific number on this.
That's what juries are for.
And they've judge
that the amount of damage done
to the reputation of these two women
is $16 million each.
Then you get into emotional distress.
Again, there's not a scientific formula
for how you equate
emotional distress to dollars.
Again, that's what juries do.
And here
they've decided
that that is worth about $20 million
for each of these plaintiffs.
And so if you take
what we call together, all those numbers,
what we call compensatory
damages, meaning
how much are these women do
in order to make them whole again,
essentially to pay them back?
And that totals out to about $72 million.
Now,
the second big category
is punitive damages.
And those awards total $75 million.
Punitive damages are different.
They're for a different purpose.
They're to punish their
to punish Rudy Giuliani
for extraordinarily egregious conduct
there, intended to send a message
to Rudy Giuliani
and to the general public.
And I think that's exactly
what the jury did here.
When we think about
the inequities in this case,
when we think about
an extraordinarily
powerful, remorseless liar
like Rudy Giuliani,
compared to these women
who are civil servants,
they never signed up for this.
Their lives were turned over.
And I think that's why
you see such a high number here
from the jury.
It's pretty astounding.
And now Elie, I've often seen big jury
numbers like
these whittled down in an appeals.
Do you think that
that's likely to happen?
Well, Rudy Giuliani
certainly has the right to appeal
and will appeal.
The main way
that these numbers often get whittled
down is on the punitive damages
side of this.
Sometimes you'll see a jury come back
with a compensatory damages amount,
and then the punitive damages amount
is four or five, ten times as much.
Appeals courts don't like that.
Appeals courts
are going to look
at the reasonableness of it
and the ratio.
Generally speaking,
we have about a 1 to 1 ratio.
Here we have about 70
some million, 72 or $3 million
on the compensatory side, $75 million
on the punitive side.
Generally speaking, appeals
courts are okay
with a 1 to 1 ratio or so.
If the punitive damages had been,
say, double
compensatory,
then I think you might be in a situation
where an appeals court
could knock it down.
But yes, appeals courts do
have the ability
to knock down these numbers.
They do fairly often.
But given
the equality of the numbers here,
and I think
given the strength of the evidence,
I think
the plaintiffs are going
to have a good argument
to uphold this verdict on appeal.