Two Georgia election workers have asked a judge to enforce the almost $150 million defamation judgment in their lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani by forcing him to turn over his luxury properties and a host of other assets.
In a filing Friday, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the mother-daughter duo who won a defamation case against the former Trump lawyer over his 2020 election lies, asked a judge to issue an order for Giuliani to turn over his assets and grant them control of the property he fails to turn over, as well as the ability to sell them.
“Those remedies are overwhelmingly justified under New York law,” the filing says. “And they are all the more appropriate in the context of this case, where Mr. Giuliani has proven time and again that he will never voluntarily comply with court orders, much less voluntarily satisfy Plaintiffs’ judgment.”
Some of the assets Freeman and Moss list are a 1980 Mercedes-Benz, “various items of furniture,” a television, sports memorabilia (including a signed Joe DiMaggio shirt), three Yankee World Series rings and 26 watches.
The women’s pursuit of Giuliani’s assets has been a long time coming. Freeman and Moss have yet to begin collecting on the money that Giuliani has owed them since December, when he filed for bankruptcy shortly after they won their suit against him. (Giuliani is appealing that verdict.)
However, during bankruptcy proceedings, Giuliani’s creditors accused him of providing false and misleading information about his assets and claimed he was using bankruptcy to avoid payment. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane ultimately decided to dismiss Giuliani’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy altogether, citing in part the disgraced lawyer’s lack of cooperation in the proceedings. That dismissal earlier this month opened the door for Freeman and Moss to go after Giuliani’s assets as a means to recover some of the money they’re owed.
Giuliani has expressed no remorse for his treatment of Freeman and Moss. After he was found to have defamed them, he continued to baselessly accuse them of stealing the 2020 election, until a judge ordered him to stop in May. At the Republican National Convention in July, he told CNN he did not regret his statements and likened his legal troubles to “the Japanese internment” during World War II.
In a statement to The Hill about Freeman and Moss’ latest request, Giuliani’s spokesperson Ted Goodman on Friday accused the women’s legal counsel of trying to “harass and intimidate” the disbarred lawyer. “This lawsuit has always been designed to censor and bully the mayor, and to deter others from exercising their right to speak up and to speak out,” Goodman said.
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