by Shaye Moss thought she was getting a promotion when her boss stopped by her cubicle on December 4, 2020. But when she entered his office, something was wrong – she realized she was the only one smiling .
It would put an end to the day when everything in her life would turn “upside down”.
For more than two hours on Tuesday, Moss – a former Atlanta election worker – gave harrowing testimony explaining how her life turned out after the fateful day when she found out that Rudy Giuliani was falsely accused of fraudulently counting mail ballots.
Dressed in a black blazer with sparkling long acrylic nails, Moss shook her hand as she was sworn in as a witness. She described her fear that her son will come home from school and find him and his grandmother hanging from a tree in their yard. How she pushed everyone close to her away because she didn’t want their reputation to be damaged. How does she get anxiety attacks. How she sometimes has to pull over because she thinks someone is following her.
She also told how she was made a “pariah” in the election office and left the job she loved, after working her way out of the mailroom. How she felt like “the worst mother in the world” when her son failed all his classes in ninth grade after he started receiving harassing messages. Like she doesn’t go out alone and is a “hermit crab”. How she has to be the last customer at the nail salon or hairdresser because she wants to be alone and she doesn’t want anyone else to be there.
A therapist diagnosed her last year with major depressive disorder and severe anxiety.
“That’s my sad life,” Moss told a jury in emotional testimony Tuesday. “I feel like I’m in a dark place and the only thing around me are conspiracies and lies.”
Giuliani sat quietly across the small Washington courtroom from Moss as she recounted all of this. This is the first time the two have come face to face.
Moss’ testimony is at the heart of a week-long trial in which she and her mother, Ruby Freeman, are seeking up to $43m in damages from Giuliani. US district judge Beryl Howell has already found Giuliani liable for defamation, so the only question left for the jury is how much the financial penalty should be. The trial entered its second day on Tuesday.
But the testimony from Moss, who broke down in tears several times on the stand, crystallizes the human toll that conspiracy theories that led to the victory of Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election – lies spread by Giuliani – had on election workers.
Moss asked: “How can someone with so much power go public and talk about something he has no understanding of?”
She described her worst nightmare. Open her front door and find a crowd with nooses in front, ready to kill her. “People in power, mayors,” she said. “They could do that because of who they are. I’m nobody,” she said.
“I have these non-stop anxiety sweats,” she said. “I never go out. I will never be caught out alone. I’m like a hermit crab,” she said. “I was scared. Very scared. I’m always scared.”
Moss said she didn’t even know what the word “treason” meant when she first received the Facebook message accusing her in early December 2020. She thought it was an old saying from the time of “Paul Revere”.
At the time, her son was using her old phone because it could be an internet hotspot. His classes were online and Moss didn’t have internet access. He started receiving so many calls and messages that he would be kicked out of the class, which was held on the Zoom platform.
The night she learned about Giuliani’s false statements, they listened to the messages together. “I had to tell him that racism is real – it comes out,” she said. Later, she would find out that her son, a rather good student, was failing all his classes.
However, she went back to work to prepare for the Georgia runoff election in January 2021. “It hurts how people feel when I’m breaking my back to make sure their vote counts,” she said. she Although she is 39, she said she hoped to resign from the elections office.
The episode also changed Moss. Before 2020, her life was “lit. It was great,” she said. She was present bubbly and would go out socially. And she had a working family, where employees were asked to put in 12 hours a day, seven days a week, before the election. Sometimes they would even make eyebrows in the bathroom.
But after Giuliani’s remarks came out, people would leave the break room when she entered, she said. She had hoped that her interim post of head of the absence department would be made permanent, but it was given to someone else. Moss was still responsible for training them and formalizing standard operating procedures.
“It felt like a slap in the face. I felt like I was being judged and my job was being taken away from me because of lies,” she said.
She thought it might be a good idea to do an interview elsewhere and get out of elections. But when she went for an interview at a local Chick-fil-A, the interviewer pulled up an article accusing her of fraud. She was so embarrassed and scared that she left the interview.
During cross-examination Tuesday afternoon, Joseph Sibley, Giuliani’s lawyer, tried to downplay the idea that Moss was entitled to thousands of dollars in damages. He pressed her to explain why it would cost millions to repair her reputation.
“I personally cannot repair my reputation right now because your client is still lying to me and ruining my reputation even more,” she said. “We have to make a statement. We have to make sure that the remaining election workers do not have to go through this. Hitting someone in the pockets, on behalf of someone whose entire career revolves around their pockets, is expected to send a message.”
As part of his questioning, he asked Moss to explain why she was not looking for work.
“I haven’t looked for another job because I have major depressive disorder and I have a lot of anxiety. I’m not going to go to a job where I can’t be my best self,” she said. She became emotional when sharing that she took medication, saying she did not like to discuss it in public.
Sibley also sought to get Moss to acknowledge that the harm she suffered was a direct result of statements made by Giuliani and not others, including the Gateway Pundit, whom she and Freeman are also suing for defamation.
“They are not different. They were all on the same hate train together. Mr. Giuliani was just driving the bus, picking up these people, and they were spreading the lies,” Moss said.
Before the jury entered the courtroom on Tuesday, Howell asked Joseph Sibley, Giuliani’s attorney, if the former New York City mayor was “playing for the cameras” when he made the comments outside the Washington DC courthouse. Monday afternoon saying he would prove. everything he said about Moss and Freeman was true.
“When I give evidence, you will get the whole story and it will be clear definitively what I said was true and whatever happened to them, which was unfortunate if others overreacted, but everything is I said about them true,” he said. . Asked if he regretted what he said, Giuliani said: “Of course I don’t, I told the truth.”
Giuliani has already legally admitted in the past that he defamed Freeman and Moss, both Black. His lawyer said Tuesday he wasn’t sure what Giuliani was doing.
“I’m not sure. He’s 80 years old. It took a toll on him,” Sibley said. Howell then went on to press Sibley about whether he was concerned or whether Giuliani didn’t have the mental capacity to follow the trial’s instructions. continue. “The answer is of course, I believe he can follow instructions,” Sibley said. “There are health concerns with Mr. Giuliani that make sitting through a multi-day trial very stressful.”
Giuliani’s claims against Freeman and Moss have been repeatedly debunked, and have been formally cleared of any wrongdoing.
Moss also said she saw Giuliani’s comments when she returned to her hotel Monday afternoon. “He was just spreading lies about us last night,” she said.
Sibley, Giuliani’s lawyer, said in court Monday that the damages sought by the plaintiffs amounted to a civil “death penalty” for his client, who was Trump’s personal attorney.
“If you grant them what they are asking for, it will be the end of Mr. Giuliani,” he said.
