A federal judge threatened to hold disgraced lawyer Rudy Giuliani in contempt if he does not turn over his assets to the former Georgia election workers he defamed, rejecting Giuliani’s claim that he does not know where his assets are.
“The notion that your client doesn’t know where his assets are is farcical,” a frustrated Judge Lewis Liman told Giuliani’s attorney, Kenneth Caruso, in a court hearing in Manhattan on Thursday.
Liman gave Giuliani until Monday, Nov. 11, to turn over his assets to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who have been waiting for nearly a year to collect on the $148 million in damages he owes them for defamation. If Giuliani does not do so by the deadline, Liman said, “I will hold him in contempt.”
Freeman and Moss had been unable to collect on the sum for months due to proceedings in Giuliani’s bankruptcy case, which he filed for shortly after the judgment was handed down in December 2023. (He is appealing the verdict in a federal court in Washington, D.C.) Giuliani’s bankruptcy case was dismissed in July, and Liman later ordered him to turn over his assets to Freeman and Moss.
However, last week, when representatives for the women finally gained access to Giuliani’s New York City penthouse, they found that almost all of his property had been removed from the apartment, Aaron Nathan, an attorney for the women, said in a court filing. Nathan also said that Giuliani had yet to transfer any property to the women, and accused him and his lawyer of stonewalling on the whereabouts of his assets. Giuliani was also seen outside a polling place in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday, in a Mercedez-Benz that was meant to be turned over to Freeman and Moss.
Giuliani had employed similar delay tactics in his bankruptcy proceedings, too. His creditors accused him of failing to submit timely and complete filings, and of hiding his assets and entering business deals in which money is paid to his businesses instead of his estate. Outside the courthouse after the hearing on Thursday, Giuliani went on a tirade against the large judgment sum. He denied defaming Freeman and Moss and repeated the false claim that the 2020 election was “fixed.” He alleged without evidence that his defamation case was “political persecution” by President Joe Biden. Giuliani also said he would join Trump’s second administration if the president-elect wanted him to. “I’m not offering myself for anything, but I would, you know,” he told reporters. “I’m very dedicated to him.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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