Former Donald Trump attorney and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani must turn over control of his Manhattan penthouse apartment and a number of valuable possessions to two election workers to whom he owes a nearly US$150-million defamation judgment, a U.S. judge ruled Tuesday.
Judge Lewis Liman of the South District of New York federal court in Manhattan said Giuliani has seven days to put the Madison Avenue apartment and a list of luxury items — including several watches, jewelry, furniture, sports memorabilia and a vintage Mercedes — into a receivership that will be controlled by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
The two women will also be entitled to legal fees Giuliani says he’s still owed by Trump’s 2020 campaign, estimated to total around US$2 million, the judge ruled.
Control of the Manhattan penthouse will be transferred to Moss and Freeman for the purposes of selling it. The apartment has an estimated worth of over US$5 million.
Among the items Giuliani has to hand over are a 1980 Mercedes that was once owned by Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall; 26 luxury watches, including one gifted to him by the president of France after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when Giuliani was New York mayor; and a signed Joe DiMaggio baseball jersey.
One of those watches was given to Giuliani by his grandfather and he asked that he be allowed to keep it because of its sentimental value. But Liman rejected the request, saying Giuliani could have had it exempted if he proved it was worth less than US$1,000 but he did not do so.
The judge added, “However painful the circumstances, a party cannot claim that every family heirloom should be exempt.”
A decision on whether to transfer control of an additional condo in Palm Beach, Fla., and a collection of New York Yankees World Series rings to the receivership will be determined after an additional hearing at the end of October, Liman ruled. Giuliani’s son Andrew, who is also named as a defendant in the case, has claimed in court his father gifted the rings to him.
Giuliani has claimed the Palm Beach condo should be exempt from the receivership because it is his primary residence. Freeman and Moss have a lien on the Florida property, estimated to be worth roughly US$3 million.
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A jury last year awarded US$148 million in damages to Moss and Freeman, who sued Giuliani for defamation over lies he spread about them in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Giuliani was one of Trump’s most vocal supporters in pushing unsubstantiated claims of large-scale voter fraud, and claimed the two women — who at the time were election workers in Georgia — had helped switch over ballots cast for Trump to his opponent Joe Biden, who won the election.
Moss and Freeman testified at their defamation trial, and to the select U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, that Giuliani’s lies about them upended their lives and led to death threats.
Giuliani filed for bankruptcy shortly after the defamation verdict in December. But a judge in July threw out his case, citing failures to comply with court orders, failure to disclose sources of income and his apparent unwillingness to hire an accountant to go over his books.
To date, Giuliani has not paid Freeman and Moss anything. The women filed for control of Giuliani’s assets in August to get the value of the judgment.
“We are proud that our clients will finally begin to receive some of the compensation to which they are entitled for Giuliani’s actions,” Aaron Nathan, a lawyer for Freeman and Moss, said in a statement. “This outcome should send a powerful message that there is a price to pay for those who choose to intentionally spread disinformation.”
Giuliani had asked the judge to bar Freeman and Moss from selling any of his assets until after his appeal of the US$148 million judgment is completed. Liman also turned down that request, saying Giuliani could have asked the federal court in Washington, D.C., where Freeman and Moss won their defamation case, to stay any asset sales pending his appeal, but did not.
“The Court also does not doubt that certain of the items may have sentimental value to Defendant,” the judge wrote. “But that does not entitle Defendant to continued enjoyment of the assets to the detriment of the Plaintiffs to whom he owes approximately $150 million. It is, after all, the underlying policy of these New York statutes that ‘no man should be permitted to live at the same time in luxury and in debt.’”
Giuliani, once a well-known prosecutor before he ran for mayor, was disbarred in New York and had his law licence suspended in Washington, D.C., earlier this year due to his false election fraud claims. A review panel in Washington recommended he should be disbarred there too for pushing the claims without any evidence.
—With additional files from the Associated Press
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