Shaye Moss said her life was “flipped upside down” when she became an epicenter of baseless accusations of mass election fraud in Georgia, taking the stand Tuesday as a witness in her defamation case against longtime Trump ally Rudy Giuliani.
“I’m just this whole new messed up person,” she said.
After the 2020 election, Giuliani accused Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, of committing election fraud against then-President Trump. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell already found the former New York City mayor civilly liable for his claims; the trial will determine how much money he owes Moss and Freeman as a result.
The mother and daughter are pursuing upward of $43.5 million in damages after Giuliani’s claims spurred hundreds of violent and racist threats, court filings show.
Moss joined Fulton County’s Registration and Elections office in 2012 as a temporary employee working in the mailroom, and after five years, she was brought on full-time. Earning that job was like winning one of Willy Wonka’s “golden tickets,” she testified Tuesday.
Her career in local government was inspired in part by her grandmother, a retired county worker herself. Growing up, Moss heard stories about Black women not having the right to vote and said she was proud to help facilitate that right with her work.
On Dec. 4, toward the end of Moss’s work day, the director of Fulton County’s Registration and Elections office came to her side of the building and asked to meet with her. Moss said she thought her team had been “noticed” for its hard work and wondered whether she would receive a promotion.
But when she entered their office, she was the only one smiling. Her boss pulled up a Dec. 3, 2020, tweet by Giuliani that read: “WATCH: Video footage from Georgia shows suitcases filled with ballots pulled from under a table AFTER supervisors told poll workers to leave room and 4 people stayed behind to keep counting votes.” The “supervisor” in question was her.
Then, Moss learned about the “hateful, racist, violent, negative, nasty messages” that had started pouring in about her. One message warned: “Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.”
Closing her eyes and taking deep breaths while recounting the experience, Moss said she felt “immediately fearful.”
“How could someone with so much power go public and talk about things he obviously has no clue about?” Moss said of Giuliani. “It’s just obvious that it’s lies. … It’s hurtful, it’s untrue, it’s unfair.”
Giuliani repeated the false claim that Moss and Freeman engaged in “changing votes” after the 2020 election Monday night after the first day of his trial had concluded and said he does not regret making those accusations.
Later that evening, Moss and Freeman’s legal team asked the judge to preclude the former New York City mayor from making arguments or testifying to those false claims, suggesting that they are contrary to the finding of liability. The judge took their request under advisement.
From there, her life “flipped upside down.” She changed her hair’s style and color the next day, fearing someone would “attempt to hang” her for the crimes Giuliani and others had alleged.
Her lawyer, John Langford, showed the jury of eight Washington, D.C., residents two selfies to depict the difference, one taken on Election Day and the other on Dec. 5, 2020. She wore long, blonde braids and a mask that read “vote” in the first selfie, while in the second, her hair was cut to her chin and her face was “puffy from crying all night.”
“Dec. 4, 2020, was the last day I was this outgoing, happy, bubbly Shaye. That was the day that everything in my life changed; everything just flipped upside down,” she said.
Since then, she said she’s become anxious and has “a lot of dark moments.” She never goes out alone and avoids going out with her mother, Freeman, so others don’t recognize them. And in April 2022, she left her job with Fulton County; she said she felt like a “pariah” in the office and had been passed over for any promotion — “a slap in the face,” she said.
“Had you ever planned on leaving?” Lankford asked her.
“No,” Moss tearfully replied, shaking her head side-to-side and wiping her face with a tissue. “I wanted to retire as a county worker like my grandma and make her proud, make my mom proud.”
Throughout Moss’s testimony, Giuliani maintained a serious face, sometimes putting his hand over his forehead or mouth. His lawyer’s cross-examination of the ex-election worker sought to pin down the breadth of Moss’s harm, questioning her over the extent of her suffering and steps she’s taken to clear her name.
Giuliani lawyer Joseph Sibley asked Moss which mental health issues she has been diagnosed with, to which Moss replied that she had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and acute stress disorder.
He also asked her to estimate how much money she’ll need to repair her reputation.
“It’s kind of hard to do that when there are extremely powerful people still spewing lies about me,” Moss replied.
Updated at 4:31 pm.