Rudy Giuliani wants to delay his trial date with Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two Georgia election workers he defamed and owes roughly $150 million, because he really wants to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration, an attorney for the mother-daughter duo told a judge on Monday.
A trial to enforce Giuliani’s payment to the women is set to begin on Jan. 16, just days before Trump will be sworn into office on Jan. 20
In a letter filed late Monday, Freeman and Moss’ attorney Aaron Nathan urged U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman to deny Giuliani’s Nov. 15 request for a month-long extension to deadlines in the case.
Giuliani’s lawyer Joseph Cammarata said this is because Giuliani has “‘plans to be ‘present’ at the presidential inauguration’… and because, in Defendant counsel’s words, ’there are inauguration events planned for, I believe, January 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, 2025.”
Cammarata said there would be “no harm” done if the trial was simply adjourned for just a few days and resumed by Jan. 22, according to Nathan.
This is but the latest turn in a very long series of delays that have persistently dogged the mother and daughter pair’s attempt to collect from President-elect Donald Trump’s onetime personal lawyer and co-defendant in the Georgia election interference case.
As HuffPost reported less than a week ago, Giuliani’s lawyers Kenneth Caruso and David Labowsky filed a motion to withdraw themselves from Giuliani’s side, and attorney Joseph Cammarata stepped in to fill the gap.
Freeman and Moss objected to Caruso and Labowsky’s planned departure in the Monday letter, saying that it would cause “disruption to these proceedings that Defendant evidently believes will be necessary if withdrawal is granted.”
Nathan notes that Caurso and Labowsky are still representing Giuliani in his appeal of the defamation judgment and said his lawyers have told him that they are “still capable of working with Mr. Giuliani where necessary.”
Caruso and Labowsky shouldn’t be allowed to withdraw until Camarata can assure the court there won’t be any more disruptions, Nathan argued.
Last December, Giuliani was found liable for defaming Moss and Freeman and was ordered to pay $148 million for the damages he caused them. A jury found he defamed the women repeatedly by disseminating false claims about their conduct during the 2020 election when they were poll workers at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
Among his other ugly accusations, Giuliani declared that Moss had passed a USB drive with votes for now-President Joe Biden on it to her mother like a vial of cocaine.
The USB drive was actually a ginger mint. Notably, Trump had also called Freeman out by name in the run-up to the November 2020 election, and in his call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, he referred to her as a “professional vote scammer and hustler,” a sentiment that Giuliani appeared to share in his attacks on the women.
After being ordered to pay Moss and Freeman, Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but the case was dismissed. The bankruptcy judge told Giuliani the record of the proceedings was littered with evidence of his “continued failure to meet his reporting obligations and provide the financial transparency required of a debtor in possession.”
He had failed to turn over key records like his list of creditors, assets or liabilities, income statements, current expenditures and more. Once the bankruptcy case was dismissed, Freeman, Moss and other creditors were allowed to begin collecting.
Last week, Liman threatened to hold Giuliani in contempt if he did not begin to surrender some of his assets. Freeman and Moss finally obtained his 1980s Mercedes-Benz convertible last week after Giuliani was seen driving the luxury vehicle in Florida on Election Day despite having already been ordered to surrender it. The women seized other assets too after last week’s court hearing, like Giuliani’s watch collection and a diamond ring.
In their letter Monday, Moss and Freeman say they have only begun to review the contents of a Long Island storage unit where Giuliani has “an extensive amount of property.” Giuliani has not been very helpful in granting access to the unit or describing what is inside, the women say, forcing them to spend several days inspecting its contents at their own expense.
Part of what the trial is meant to resolve in January are disputes over Giuliani’s residential properties in Florida and New York, namely, homestead exemptions he wants to invoke. In New York and Florida, real estate that is owned and occupied as someone’s primary residence is exempt from satisfying money judgments.
In October, Giuliani was ordered to transfer his Upper East Side penthouse to Freeman and Moss, but his condo in Palm Beach, Florida, was temporarily spared.
Giuliani has said that his property in Palm Beach is his principal residence, but according to a request to Liman his lawyer filed on Monday, he is still angling for homestead exemptions for the Manhattan property.
If the court decides that Florida is Giuliani’s principal “homestead,” then he wants an order stating that Freeman and Moss must put aside roughly $204,000 into an escrow account.
This is to “ensure that the plaintiffs do not expend 100% of the funds derived from the sale of the New York [apartment]” Cammarata wrote, and that “one way or the other, [Giuliani] obtains either the benefits under a Florida homestead or alternatively the New York homestead.”
In an order issued Tuesday, the judge denied that request specifically, saying that Giuliani’s lawyers had failed to comply with local rules when making it. For example, while motions submitted in letter format are welcome, there are certain criteria that must be met. Giuliani’s team did not meet them in their filing on Monday night, since it failed to include an explanation of what statutes, existing case law or facts support the request.
Nathan also said Monday that Giuliani has resisted providing “full and complete answers under oath” in response to an information subpoena submitted on Nov. 8. The same goes for Giuliani’s spokesman Ted Goodman, Giuliani’s alleged former girlfriend Maria Ryan and Giuliani’s onetime bookkeeper Ryan Medrano, Nathan claims.
Judge Liman ordered Goodman, Medrano and Ryan last week to submit to subpoenas by Nov. 21. A hearing in New York is scheduled for Nov. 26.
Nevertheless, thus far, Nathan says Giuliani has “hamstrung” Moss and Freeman and that no significant amount of cash has been surrendered to them to date.
Giuliani “does not appear to have any intention of turning over any cash beyond a few thousand dollars in one account,” Nathan wrote before adding that so far, every delay tactic Giuliani has deployed in this stage of proceedings is “virtually identical” to what happened when the case was being hashed out in Washington and during bankruptcy proceedings.
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The Jan. 16 trial date has been on the schedule since Oct. 17, and Trump’s inauguration and Giuliani’s “preference” to attend, “does not remotely constitute good cause to adjourn this trial,” the women’s lawyer wrote.
Giuliani’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.