Rudy Giuliani leaves Manhattan federal court in New York on Friday, January 3, 2025.
Adam Gray/AP
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Adam Gray/AP
NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court Monday for failing to properly respond to requests for information while turning over his assets to satisfy a $148 million defamation judgment awarded to two agents Elections in Georgia.
Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled after hearing Giuliani testify for a second day in a contempt hearing called after attorneys for election workers said the former New York mayor failed to properly respond to requests evidence over the past few months.
Liman said Giuliani “willfully violated a clear and unambiguous order of this court” when he “missed” the Dec. 20 deadline to provide evidence that would help the judge decide at a trial later this year. month if Giuliani can keep a Palm Beach. Florida, the condominium as a residence or must surrender it because it is considered a vacation home.
Because Giuliani did not reveal the full names of his doctors, a complete list of them or his other professional service providers, the judge said he would find at trial that none of them was in Florida or had not been changed after January 1st. 2024. That’s the date Giuliani says he established Palm Beach as his permanent residence.
Liman also excluded Giuliani from testifying about emails or text messages to establish that his property was in Florida.
The judge said Giuliani produced only a dozen and a half “hand-picked” documents and no phone, email or text records related to his property. He said he could also make inferences during the trial about “gaps” in the evidence resulting from Giuliani’s failure to turn over documents.
Liman said he would refrain from commenting on other possible sanctions.
Giuliani testified for about three hours in Liman’s Manhattan courtroom on Friday, but the judge allowed him to finish his testimony remotely Monday for more than two hours from his Palm Beach condominium. By the time the judge issued his oral ruling, Giuliani was no longer present at all.
Joseph Cammarata, Giuliani’s lawyer, noted in a later email that election workers were also not present in the courtroom and he called the result “no surprise.”
“This case is about the fight against the law and the militarization of the justice system in New York,” he said.
Cammarata said the criminal case against President-elect Donald Trump and the civil case against Giuliani were “very similar. It’s left-wing Democrats trying to use liberal New York judges to win when they should be losing on the merits.”
At the start of the hearing, Giuliani appeared in front of an American flag background, which he said he uses for an Internet program he runs, but the judge asked him to replace it with a plain background. He also at one point held up the pocket watch he inherited from his grandfather and said he was ready to give it up.
Giuliani admitted that he sometimes did not provide everything requested in the case because he believed what was requested was too broad, inappropriate or even a “trap” set by lawyers for plaintiffs.
He also said he sometimes had difficulty providing information regarding his assets due to numerous criminal and civil court cases requiring him to produce factual information.
Liman called one of Giuliani’s claims “absurd” and said that being suspicious of the intentions of election workers’ lawyers was “no excuse for violating court orders.”
Giuliani, 80, said those requirements made it “impossible to function officially” about 30 to 40 percent of the time.
After the ruling, the former mayor released a statement through his press secretary, saying it was “tragic to see our justice system turned into a total mockery, where we have charades instead of real hearings and trial”.
Election workers’ lawyers say Giuliani demonstrated a “consistent pattern of willful defiance” of Liman’s October order to forfeit his assets after he was found liable in 2023 for defaming their clients by falsely accusing them of tampering with ballots in the 2020 presidential election.
They said in court papers that Giuliani returned a Mercedes-Benz and his New York apartment, but not the documents needed to monetize the assets. And they said he failed to return his watches and sports memorabilia, including a Joe DiMaggio jersey, and that he failed to return “a single dollar of his non-exempt cash accounts.”
Giuliani said Monday that he is investigating what happened to the DiMaggio jersey and currently does not know where it is or who owns it.
Aaron Nathan, an attorney for the election workers, declined to comment on Monday’s ruling.
The trial over whether Giuliani should give up his Florida condominium and World Series rings is scheduled for Jan. 16.
His lawyers predict he will eventually regain custody of his personal belongings on appeal.
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