NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani lashed out at a Manhattan federal court judge Tuesday — claiming he didn’t have enough money to pay his bills amid collection efforts from the Georgia mother and daughter election workers he baselessly accused of ballot fraud.
The outburst came when Judge Lewis Liman expressed skepticism over the former mayor’s excuses for failing to comply with obligations to surrender assets to Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, the workers he must pay nearly $150 million after being found liable for falsely accusing them of rigging the 2020 election.
Liman — who recently threatened Giuliani with sanctions for refusing to turn over assets to Freeman and Moss, including his stake in his Upper East Side condo — expressed frustration that Giuliani had provided them with his 1980 Mercedes-Benz and the keys but not the paperwork, saying it was “meaningless.”
“Your client is a competent person. He was the United States attorney for this district. The notion that he can’t apply for a title certificate for the car is …” the judge said before Giuliani cut him off.
“Every implication that you’ve made is against me!” Giuliani said, claiming he had applied for it.
Responding to the judge’s skepticism that Giuliani is “indigent,” Giuliani said he had no access to his assets, claiming, “I’m not impoverished. Everything I have is tied up. I don’t have a car. I don’t have a credit card. I don’t have cash.”
“I can’t pay my bills,” Giuliani claimed.
Liman then warned Giuliani’s new lawyer in the matter, Staten Island defense lawyer Joseph Cammarata, about continued outbursts, saying there should be “no higher priority for your client right now than complying with the court’s orders” and that if he wanted to speak, he could get on the stand and do so under oath.
“Next time, he’s not going to be permitted to speak, and the court will have to take action,” the judge said. “He’s either represented by counsel, or he’s permitted to proceed (as his own lawyer). He can’t have hybrid representation.”
Earlier in the hearing, Liman cut loose Giuliani’s original attorneys in the matter and denied efforts to push back his upcoming trial so he could participate in Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The trial set for Jan. 16 relates to collection efforts by Freeman and Moss. It will concern his continued possession of his Palm Beach, Florida, condo, which he’s claimed is his homestead and cannot be taken away from him, and his Yankees World Series rings, which he claims he gifted his son, Andrew.
He’s been forced to give up to the two women almost everything else he owns of value in a turnover order he is appealing.
After granting a motion from his former attorneys, Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski, to withdraw from the case for undisclosed reasons, Liman declined to allow any more delays, telling Cammarata that his client could not fire his lawyers and “restart the clock” by hiring another.
“My client regularly consults and deals directly with President-elect Trump on issues that are taking place as the incoming administration is afoot as well as (the) inauguration,” Cammarata unsuccessfully argued in a bid to delay the trial.
“My client wants to exercise his political right to be there.”
Liman said Giuliani’s “social calendar does not constitute due cause.”
In a statement, Giuliani’s now-ex-lawyers said they had moved to step down from the case due to “a difference of opinion.” Cammarata, in court, insinuated they’d abandoned Giuliani.
“We took on the representation in New York to help Rudy. We have a difference of opinion as to how best to do that,” Caruso and Labkowski said in a statement to the Daily News.
The former Trump lawyer filed for bankruptcy after he was hit with the staggering judgment in December — automatically freezing all civil matters against him — but the matter was thrown out when he failed to be forthcoming about his finances.
The collection efforts by Freeman and Moss are among a long list of civil actions facing Giuliani, who has been stripped of his ability to practice law, in addition to a host of criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona related to his alleged efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, to which he’s pleaded not guilty.
Last week, Freeman and Moss asked the Washington, D.C., judge who presided over their defamation trial to hold Giuliani in contempt for continuing to defame them in a pending request.
In two recent broadcasts of “America’s Mayor Live,” he referred to them as “quadruple counting” ballots. They said those were among several recent examples of him continuing to malign them, including after his last Manhattan court appearance.
Giuliani said he didn’t have enough money to order a taxi home outside the courthouse on Tuesday. He criticized President Joe Biden and his family at length, decried the Trump-appointed Liman as a “serious left-wing Democrat,” and told the Daily News he did not wish to clarify recent remarks about not regretting his defamation of Freeman and Moss.
“I do not regret it for a minute,” he said.
–
