With a motion for civil contempt already looming over him in Washington, D.C., another judge on Friday warned Rudy Giuliani that “on pain of contempt” he must comply with requests from the Georgia election workers he defamed to surrender his assets squirreled away in an increasingly controversial storage unit on New York’s Long Island.
The three-page order comes hours after lawyers for the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, told U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman on Friday that there have been multiple attempts to “intimidate or interfere” with them as they try to inventory the unit containing Giuliani’s assets ― and that this obstruction is now turning into a social media campaign against them.
Giuliani owes the women $148 million for defaming them during the 2020 election. He claimed repeatedly and falsely that they were engaged in fraud and that they’d tried to manipulate ballots in Fulton County. After much delay, and a failed bid by Giuliani to declare bankruptcy once a jury found him liable for fraud, a trial is now scheduled to begin Jan.
16 in New York. At trial, the judge is expected to hash out how to enforce the surrender of Giuliani’s assets and property. The former New York City mayor has relinquished only some of what he has been ordered to turn over, including a watch collection and a Mercedes convertible.
In the past week, things have become increasingly tense between the parties, with Moss and Freeman’s lawyers even seeking to hol.