Attorneys for election workers that Rudy Giuliani defamed wrote a scathing letter accusing the former New York City mayor of launching a crusade meant to “to obstruct and intimidate” them as they try to recover his assets.
In a Friday letter to a federal judge, Michael Gottlieb, a lawyer representing election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, accused Giuliani of orchestrating a “public relations campaign” meant to stop the women from collecting the belongings they are owed.
Last December, Giuliani was ordered to pay Freeman and Moss nearly $150 million after a court found he defamed them by falsely claiming they manipulated election results in 2020. The decision led Donald Trump’s disgraced attorney to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which has since been dismissed.
The mother-daughter duo are now allowed to seize his valuables to recover what they are owed.
But a barrage of recent court filings, including Giuliani’s attempts to appeal, reveal a weeks-long legal battle that the women argue is the former mayor’s attempts to delay, block or obstruct them from collecting what he has been ordered to turn over.
Both Giuliani’s new lawyer and those in his inner circle have argued that the former mayor was wronged and have set out on a mission “designed to interfere” with the women’s “efforts to perform their duties by attacking the underlying judgment,” the letter said.
Joey Cammarata, who is representing Giuliani after his previous legal team abruptly quit, held a press conference on Wednesday outside of the offices of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, the firm representing the election workers, where he “launched a variety of attacks” against this case, Gottlieb wrote.
There, Cammarata called the court-ordered turnover of Giuliani’s belongings a “seek and destroy mission of America’s mayor.”
“We will not relent,” he said. “They are doing everything they can to stop Mr. Giuliani from having a formidable defense. We are not going to allow it. ... This firm is doing everything in its power to break an 80-year-old patriot to its country, an American who did so many great things for us.”
This rhetoric was also echoed on social media, where the hashtag “IStandWithRudy” started trending, according to lawyers for the election workers. The online campaign was meant to interfere with the turnover efforts by “inciting members of the public to fight (whatever that means),” they wrote.
Ted Goodman, Giuliani’s spokesperson who has been subpoenaed in this case, used the hashtag in a post voicing his opposition to the forced turnover of Giuliani’s 1980 Mercedes-Benz: “I’m calling on ALL Americans to speak out against this lawfare. Shame on the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher for participating in this injustice.#IStandWithRudy.”
The alleged owner of the Long Island storage facility — where the former Trump lawyer is accused of hiding some items from his New York City apartment — also posted on X that “this is not going to happen. America has to come back real fast. Pray for Rudy Giuliani, today is his day.”
“The public relations campaign described above has no legal purpose — this is a turnover proceeding governed by facts and law, not a political campaign — and, instead, is an obvious attempt to obstruct and intimidate Receivers from effectuating the duties that this Court has authorized them to perform,” Gottlieb wrote.
Cammarata’s “publicity stunt, reinforced by Mr. Giuliani’s social media campaign, continues Mr. Giuliani’s habit of litigating in the press issues that he has conceded or stipulated to in court,” he added, seemingly referencing Giuliani’s baseless claims about the 2020 election and his defamatory statements about Freeman and Moss, among other spurious statements Giuliani has made on his podcasts and to the media.
Earlier this week, the election workers asked a judge in Washington, DC who had presided over their initial defamation case to consider sanctions against Giuliani after he repeated “the exact same lies for which [he] has already been held liable, and which he agreed to be bound by court order to stop repeating” during recent livestreams.
The judge required him to respond to the complaint by December 2 — or risk being held in contempt.
The women say they have received18 watches and a diamond ring, but they are still waiting on nine other watches and all of his “costume jewelry,” according to their letter.
As for the Mercedes, they have physical possession of the vehicle, but still don’t have the deed, title, or right of ownership to the car, or any signed documents transferring its ownership, they said.
The Manhattan penthouse is in the process of being transferred, but the former mayor hasn’t delivered the keys, stock, or proprietary lease for the apartment “and apparently has been unable to locate any of the underlying ownership documents,” according to the letter.
And there’s been another roadblock: the penthouse remains in the names of both Giuliani and his ex-wife Judith.
Attorneys said they have also struggled to obtain the contents of a storage unit in Ronkonkoma, New York, since it’s unclear what is being held there that could be turned over.
The unit holds eight storage boxes, more than 20 pallets of moving boxes, and furniture, according to the letter.
They are asking Giuliani to segregate his property from all property in the storage unit that they are entitled — along with a list of those items — no later than December 6.
It’s unclear whether his Joe DiMaggio jersey, signed art, or sports memorabilia that he has been ordered to turn over is in that facility, the letter says.
So the election workers have instructed Giuliani to provide instructions as to where to find these items before the next hearing on November 26 “or explain why he is incapable of doing so” before 3 p.m. on November 25, Gottlieb said.
Invoices show that Giuliani appeared to have moved “a substantial amount of his property” from his Manhattan apartment to the storage unit before the judge ordered him to turn over his belongings. That storage unit is under the name of Maria Ryan, Giuliani’s business associate, the election workers discovered earlier this month.
