A judge has ordered former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani back to court because he missed a deadline to surrender his car and other prized possessions that’s all part of a $148 million defamation case judgment, the Associated Press reported.
US District Judge Lewis Liman issued his order on Monday after the lawyers for the two former Georgia election workers who are the recipients of the defamation award said that when they went to see what assets were left in Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment, it was empty.
Liman had told the embattled former mayor to hand over his belongings to the lawyers by Oct. 29 but Giuliani apparently did not comply and has been told to return to court Thursday. The possessions Giuliani was ordered to hand over included the apartment, a 1980 Mercedes once owned by film great Lauren Bacall and a bag of collectibles, including a shirt signed by New York Yankees great Joe DiMaggio.
To further complicate matters, media outlets reportedly spotted Giuliani sitting in a 1980s Mercedes while in Palm Beach. FL on Election Day, where former President Donald Trump was also spending his Tuesday. Aaron Nathan, a lawyer for the former election workers, referenced the media reports of the Mercedes in correspondence with the judge.
“It is clear that Mr. Giuliani is flouting his obligations under the Court’s Turnover and Receivership Order,” Nathan wrote. Michael Ragusa, head of Giuliani’s security, told The Associated Press that the judicial persecution of “America’s mayor” is “politically motivated.”
“Mayor Giuliani, is an 80-year-old man with a bad knee and 9/11-related lung disease, he relies on this vehicle as his primary means of transportation in Florida, where there is no mass transit system like New York City’s,” Ragusa wrote. “The way he is being pushed toward poverty by those targeting him — after all he has done for this country — is appalling and it is clearly politically motivated.” Giuliani has been disbarred in both Washington, DC and New York state.
Giuliani’s attorneys have written to Liman to assure the judge that their client obeying all legal requirements and that the impetus is on the plaintiffs’s lawyers to secure the former mayor’s possessions.
