By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani testified on Friday to try to defend himself against an attempt to hold him in contempt of court by two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of trying to help steal the 2020 election. for Democrat Joe Biden.
Election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Moss say Giuliani disobeyed a U.S. District Judge Lewis (JO:) Liman’s orders to give up his Manhattan apartment, ownership of a 1980 Mercedes and sports memorabilia in payment of a $148 million defamation judgment in their favor.
Freeman and Moss sued Giuliani — a former personal attorney for Republican President Donald Trump — in 2021, accusing him of defaming them. Giuliani has repeatedly made false claims that surveillance video shows the pair hiding and counting cases full of illegal ballots at an Atlanta basketball arena that were used to process votes during the 2020 election.
Two years later, Giuliani admitted to making defamatory statements about them, and a judge ruled that he was liable for defamation as a sanction against him for failing to turn over the electronic records to Moss and Freeman.
A jury in Washington, DC, later ordered Freeman and Moss to pay approximately $73 million in damages and $75 million in punitive damages.
Lawyers for Freeman and Moss say Giuliani didn’t give them all the assets he needed. At a hearing Friday in federal court in Manhattan, they urged Liman to hold him in contempt and punish him by finding that he did not treat the Palm Beach, Florida, apartment as his permanent residence, meaning he could be returned.
Giuliani, 80, claims that his daily life has been disrupted by two election workers, making it difficult for him to obtain the necessary paperwork, and that he did not “willfully disobey” any court orders.
He also said he relied on his previous attorneys in the case to comply with requests for information from Freeman and Moss.
Those lawyers, Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski, withdrew in November, saying it was in part because Giuliani refused to comply with those requests.
‘HE MADE ME LIKE MY DOG BECAUSE OF YOU’
The contempt charge in the district where he was the top federal prosecutor will mark a further fall for Giuliani, once known as “America’s Mayor” for his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Giuliani was impeached for making false claims about the 2020 election and has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona that he helped Trump’s failed bid to overturn his loss.
During a break in the hearing, Giuliani asked courtroom sketch artist Jane Rosenberg if she would make him “pretty,” said Rosenberg, who documented the hearing for Reuters. He criticized Rosenberg’s drawing of him in the previous proceedings by frowning his face.
“You made me look like my dog,” Giuliani said, according to Rosenberg.
Lawyers for the election workers also say Giuliani has not sent them documents that would help them determine whether he must surrender his Florida apartment.
Giuliani’s new lawyer, Joseph Cammarata, said Giuliani had “significantly, if not almost completely” complied with poll workers’ requests, but said he was being asked for an “astronomical” amount of information while facing numerous other legal entanglements.
“Mr. Giuliani is an 80-year-old man who has been hit by a whirlwind of discovery requests in multiple jurisdictions,” Cammarata said.
