Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani could be held in contempt of court if he fails to turn over property to election workers he defamed in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
The cash-strapped former New York City mayor was ordered to a federal court hearing in Manhattan on Thursday after attorneys for a mother-daughter pair of election workers accused him of moving around and hiding a long list of valuables he has been court-ordered to turn over.
District Judge Lewis Liman initially gave Giuliani one week to turn over his property, including a New York penthouse and a 1980 Mercedes-Benz convertible. He was spotted riding in the passenger seat of the car while outside Trump’s polling location in Palm Beach, Florida, on Election Day.
Giuliani will have until November 14 to hand it all over, or risk severe sanctions, after attorneys for the women argued in court filings and in front of a judge that he has deliberately evaded their attempts to recover any of it.
At one point, Giuliani’s attorney Kenneth Caruso could not appear to answer who, other than his client, knows where any of those valuables are, while Giuliani himself told the judge that he refused to list any other names in court documents because his associates in the case have been “virtually tortured and treated terribly.”
“No one else in the world. Is that accurate?” Liman asked.
“I will look into that and report back,” Caruso said.
“Your client is right there,” the judge fired back. “The notion there is no information your client knows where his assets are is farcical.”
Liman told Giuliani to answer those sworn documents “truthfully and fully, and if necessary, take the stand under oath.”
Giuliani — sitting between his lawyer inside a building the former mayor himself opened nearly 30 years ago — was slumped in his chair with his arms folded, shaking his head and frequently trying to get his attorney’s attention while he was at a nearby podium sparring with the judge.
Caruso also accused the women’s legal team of a “vindictive” campaign to collect what the courts say they are owed, including Giuliani’s grandfather’s watch.
“Oh, come on. That’s ridiculous,” Liman fired back.
“Every day,” debtors in his courtroom — including a case involving a bodega order who shorted his employees’ wages — are ordered to turn over property, including heirlooms, Liman said.
“If they owe a debt, they owe debt,” whether that’s a bodega owner or Giuliani, he said. “The law is the law. … Don’t come to me and say it’s vindictive.”
He said the former mayor is under an “unequivocal obligation to deliver all receivership property to the receiver.”
“If he hasn’t delivered and there was a way in which he could have delivered, then there’s going to be contempt sanctions,” he said.
During a bankruptcy hearing earlier this year, Giuliani claimed that Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee owe him for unpaid legal fees for work he did in a spurious attempt to overturn 2020 election results — a saga that also saw him make defamatory statements about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two election workers in Georgia who were later awarded nearly $150 million at the conclusion of a defamation case last year.
Caruso, growing frustrated at the end of the hour-long hearing, appeared to suggest that he believes the initial defamation verdict will be overturned by a Washington DC appeals court anyway, and that “plaintiffs will have to give it all back.”
The judge said that does not preclude Giuliani from following the court’s instructions.
“This should not be complicated stuff,” he said
Outside the court, Giuliani told reporters that he does not have any regrets about defaming the women before he corrected himself to say that he does not believe he ever defamed them.
“Mr. Trump doesn’t have to help me get out of this,” he said as he got into a car. “All Mr. Trump has to do is straighten out the legal system, and you’ll find out who the real criminals are.”
In court filings and in bankruptcy proceedings, Giuliani said he believes he is owed $2 million from Trump’s campaign.
When it comes to that money, “we haven’t had a peep from that from the plaintiffs,” Caruso said on Thursday.
Asked by the judge how much money he believes Giuliani was owed, Caruso whispered with Giuliani, then told the judge he “doesn’t remember.”
The items Giuliani must hand over are allegedly in his homes in New York and Palm Beach and in a storage facility in Ronkonkoma, Long Island — to which he claims he has no access.
In court filings, attorneys for the women said they were able to get inside the Manhattan penthouse, but it was cleaned out. Another filing shows a photo from a real estate listing for the property with leather armchairs, a large desk and a Joe DiMaggio Yankees jersey hanging over a fireplace.
A second photo shows the room mostly empty, other than a couch, a rug, and a different smaller desk with a small chair behind it.
Attorneys also accused Giuliani of opening secret bank accounts holding $40,000 intended to hide his cash while his since-dissolved bankruptcy proceedings were underway. He also started a new business account, Standard USA LLC, of which he has 80 percent ownership, and “whose purpose and activities remain a mystery,” according to attorneys.
Subpoenas and restraining orders are “on their way,” according to attorney Aaron Nathan.
Nathan told the judge that the New York penthouse is the one item on the list that they have had the least difficulty securing. He said it is not a coincidence that it is also the “one piece of property that can’t be moved” and subject to “game playing.”
Nathan and attorneys for the women must deliver Instructions on how the property should be moved, and where the property should be moved to, by November 11.
Giuliani must comply by November 14.
The keys and title for the Mercedes must be delivered on November 11.
