Rudy Giuliani says goodbye to luxury apartment: Judge forces him to turn over valuable possessions
Rudy Giuliani is finally being ordered to pay the piper for his role in the misinformation campaign that attempted to overturn the 2020 election results.
The former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, has been ordered by a federal judge to turn over his luxury Manhattan penthouse apartment along with all of his valuable possessions to the two ex-Georgia elections workers he was found guilty of defaming. Under the court order issued by Judge Lewis Liman, he will have seven days to surrender his property to a receivership under the control of the two women.
They will then be able to sell the three-bedroom Upper East Side apartment, which was listed at $5.1 million this fall. Aditionally, they will take control of around two dozen watches, other jewelry items, furniture and Yankee memorabilia as well as a 1980 Mercedes once owned by the Hollywood star Lauren Bacall. They will also be entitled to roughly $2 million in legal fees that Giuliani says is still owed to him by the Trump campaign.
Why did a judge order Rudy Giuliani to turn over his luxury apartment and other valuable possessions?
A jury awarded Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss $148 million last December in the defamation lawsuit brought against the former Donald Trump attorney for spreading lies about them as part of the misinformation campaign that attempted to overturn the 2020 election results.
Giuliani falsely claiming that they had tampered with the ballot count in Fulton County. The accusations, echoed by the former president, resulted in the two receiving death threats, Trump supporters showing up at their houses, along with those of their family members, and they were forced to go into hiding.
After losing the defamation lawsuit, Guiliani filed for bankruptcy but US Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane dismissed that case citing a “lack of financial transparency” that he found “particularly troubling given concerns that Mr. Giuliani has engaged in self-dealing and that he has potential conflicts of interest that would hamper the administration of his bankruptcy case.”
That opened up the possibility for Shaye and Moss to pursue collection of what they are owed and at the same time allow Guiliani to appeal the verdict of the defamation lawsuit.
“The road to justice for Ruby and Shaye has been long, but they have never wavered,” said Aaron Nathan, a lawyer representing the two plantiffs. “Last December, a jury delivered a powerful verdict in their favor, and we’re proud that today’s ruling makes that verdict a reality.”