When the world seems dark and scary, we cling to the constants. The sun, rising in the East. The reliably excellent hivemind of the Taylor Swift fanbase. Rudy Giuliani’s uncanny ability to make any legal situation worse.
For as long as it’s legal — check back in three months! — we’ll have the antics of America’s mayor to sustain us.
Giuliani is currently bumstumbling his way through a collection action filed by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Atlanta poll workers whom he defamed in 2020. How wise of American voters to have saved him the trouble of picking out two Black women to frame for stealing the 2024 election!
Rudy owes these women $148 million, thanks to a jury verdict last December. He has yet to pay them anything, and seems to believe that he can simply jerk them around forever, despite clear signals from Judge Lewis Liman that something very bad will happen if he continues to screw around.
Liman: “He is under an unqualified obligation to deliver all of the receivership property to the receiver.”
He adds later: “If he doesn’t comply, I’m sure I’m going to get a motion for contempt.”
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 7, 2024
This week, after it emerged that the defendant had removed the expensive furnishing and memorabilia from his apartment in New York before handing it over to his creditors, the court summoned him to a hearing in-person in the Southern District of New York, brushing off Rudy’s complaint that he needed to be in Florida to record his show for Mike Lindell’s $14.88 pillow network. At the hearing, Giuliani’s counsel Ken Caruso once again represented to the court that his client was ready and willing to turn over all property.
The plaintiffs counter that Rudy’s driving around Florida in a Mercedes that is subject to the turnover over, refuses to say what furnishings were shifted to the storage unit in Ronkonkoma, and feigns ignorance over how the money in his accounts might find its way to the plaintiffs:
[W]ith respect to the cash accounts held at Citibank, Mr. Giuliani’s position is, apparently, that Plaintiffs should go facilitate the turnover without his help. ECF No. 88 at 3. That is not how a turnover order works. The Court’s order obligates Mr. Giuliani to deliver the funds, which both Mr. Giuliani and any third-party garnishee are permitted do under the express terms of the restraining notice. See CPLR § 5222(b) (permitting transfer of restrained property “pursuant to an order of the court”). Mr. Giuliani speculates that were he to ask, Citibank would not release the funds, but does not suggest that he has even tried that initial step to comply with the Court’s order.
Meanwhile, Giuliani has failed to comply with discovery obligations for himself and his various businesses — an object of intense interest to the plaintiffs in light of his lawyers’ admission that Giuliani routes all his earnings through shell companies and pays his various “employees” first. This is particularly true since Giuliani just disclosed that he set up at least one new business entity during the pendency of this very litigation.
Yesterday, Caruso begged the court for a few days more indulgence, requesting that the November 7 deadline — also yesterday, if you can even believe it — to cough up information on seven Giuliani-related LLCs be extended to Wednesday the 13th.
Judge Liman responded within hours that “Plaintiffs have until the close of business on November 8, 2024 to respond to this application.” As of this writing, Freeman and Moss have not offered an opinion on this application. Let’s just assume they are debating the propriety of docketing a response that says simply “LOL, GTFOH,” followed by the eye roll and middle finger emojis.
This morning the court published a new scheduling order that contemplates an extremely expeditious settling of all debts: He ordered Giuliani to hand over all of the receivership assets by Friday of next week; He ordered him to get right with God and answer the information subpoenas he’s been ducking since August; And he told Rudy to figure out once and for all which apartment he’d like to designate as his homestead, because saying he’d prefer to keep the Palm Beach apartment, but if his homestead exception for Florida is defeated, he’d like to designate his New York unit “in the alternative” is not going to cut it.
Finally, Judge Liman invoked the “C word” again:
The parties are warned that continued violation of the Turnover Order may result in contempt sanctions.
Meanwhile, after Andy Giuliani launched himself toward the podium to claim that his dad gave him his World Series rings in 2018, the plaintiffs are seeking evidence of the boy wonder’s claims. Notably Giuliani described the rings as personal property when he filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and so the plaintiffs are just wondering if he filed any gift tax returns associated with this transfer, or he kept it on the DL from Uncle Sam.
God bless ya, Roodles. You’re a beacon of light in these dark days.
Freeman v. Giuliani [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.