A federal judge ordered Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday to hand over a long list of lucrative assets to two Georgia election workers who won a defamation verdict stemming from the former New York City mayor’s 2020 election lies.
Per the order from U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman for the Southern District of New York, Giuliani must give up his shares in his Manhattan penthouse apartment. He’s also ordered to part ways with a Mercedes-Benz previously owned by famed actress Lauren Bacall, at least 26 watches, and signed New York Yankees memorabilia.
Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss will receive the assets as they move to collect on a $148 million defamation judgment that they won from a D.C. jury in December 2023.
Other items that Moss and Freeman will be able to collect on include an unspecified amount of cash, furniture, a TV, and costume jewelry. A Palm Beach condo that Giuliani owns is subject to a separate legal action, while Andrew Giuliani, the former mayor’s son, is suing to block the potential transfer of three World Series rings.
For America’s onetime mayor, the order marks the end of years of attempts to resist and obstruct the defamation claim. Before trial in the case, Giuliani earned the ire of the judge for blowing off discovery deadlines and other requirements. After agreeing not to contest that he made “false statements” about the two election workers, he continued to refuse to hand over key records.
Days after being found liable in the defamation case, Giuliani tried to head off collection by filing for bankruptcy. But that quickly devolved into the same kind of farce: Giuliani blew through deadlines, failed to file the financial disclosures required of him, and admitted at one point that he paid off his girlfriend’s credit card while concealing that he had started a new, branded coffee bean business.
The bankruptcy judge eventually dismissed that case, exposing Giuliani to direct collection on his assets.
Judge Liman also ordered that Giuliani transfer an intangible asset to the election workers: a roughly $2 million claim for legal fees that the Trump campaign and RNC purportedly owe him for work on the 2020 and 2021 Stop the Steal effort.
Giuliani testified at a hearing that he had submitted an invoice for the fees (“about two million dollars” worth), but had not yet been paid.
Attorneys for the former mayor had asked the court to delay the transfer of that claim until after the November presidential election for fear of a resulting “media frenzy.”
For the judge, that was an example of “profound irony” given Giuliani’s behavior around the 2020 election: casting doubt on the result and defaming two Georgia election workers “by perpetuating lies about them.”
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