Rudy Giuliani erupts at NYC federal judge as January trial date set in $148M defamation case
Rudy Giuliani erupted in Manhattan court Tuesday — claiming that the judge was unfairly “against” him — as he failed to get out of a January trial date in his $148 million defamation case.
“Every implication that you’ve made is against me!” Giuliani, the disbarred former US attorney for the Southern District, shouted at Judge Lewis Liman during a hearing in Manhattan federal court.
The 80-year-old former New York City mayor threw a temper tantrum after Liman questioned why Giuliani had not yet turned over the title to his 1980 Mercedes convertible to the two Georgia election workers he defamed after the 2020 presidential election.
“Your client is a competent person. He was the US Attorney in this district,” Liman said, addressing Giuliani’s lawyer. “The notion that he can’t apply for a title certificate,” he continued — before Giuliani cut him off.
“I did apply for it!” Giuliani pleaded. “What am I supposed to do, make it up myself? Your implication that I have not been diligent about it is totally incorrect.”
The embattled former mayor also accused the judge of unfairly characterizing his claim that he has limited access to assets as him crying “poverty” to the court.
“I’m not impoverished … Everything I have is tied up,” Giuliani claimed. “I don’t have a car. I don’t have a credit card. I don’t have cash.”
Giuliani also claimed, without providing evidence, that someone had placed what he called a “stop order” on his Social Security account.
The judge then warned him not to speak again.
“Next time, he’s not going to be permitted to speak, and the court will take action,” Liman said.
“Your client can either represent himself by counsel or appear pro se,” the judge added, referring to the legal term for self-representation. “He can’t do both.”
The fiery exchange unfolded after a lawyer for the election workers — Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss — said that Giuliani turned over the keys to the blue convertible and the luxury car itself — but not the title to the vintage vehicle, which Giuliani claims to have lost track of.
“The car and the keys, without the title, is meaningless,” Liman noted.
Earlier in the hearing, Giuliani pouted, cradling his face with his hands, after Liman denied his bid to push back a Jan. 16 trial over whether he can hang on to some prized possessions while he appeals a Washington, DC, trial judgment against him in the defamation case. The trial will center specifically on Giuliani’s Palm Beach, Florida, condo, and Yankees World Series rings — which he claims were a gift to his son Andrew — that he’s been ordered to hand over to the election workers.
Among Giuliani’s arguments for delaying the trial was that he’d like the case to be resolved in time for him to attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. His lawyer, Staten Island attorney Joseph Cammarata, claimed Giuliani has an “involvement” with the inauguration, and that he “regularly consults” with Trump.
But Liman, reading his ruling from the bench, said “the defendant’s social calendar does not constitute good cause” to grant the delay. But he said that he’d be open to moving the trial up to Jan. 13 or Jan. 14 so that it can finish up in time for Giuliani to theoretically attend the event.
The jurist also blasted a claim from Cammarata that the case is taking a severe financial toll on Giuliani.
“Your client’s claims of poverty when there is no evidence before me … is not well founded,” Liman said, adding: “It doesn’t appear that your client is indigent.”
Giuliani was ordered last month to surrender his ritzy Manhattan apartment, the Mercedes, prized sports memorabilia and other goods to Freeman and Moss, whom he was found to have defamed by falsely claiming they tried to cheat Trump out of the 2020 election that he lost.
DC federal judge Beryl Howell found Giuliani liable for defamation by default after the ex-mayor broke the court’s rules by failing to turn over evidence that he’d been ordered to divulge.
A jury then awarded the two workers — who testified about angry mobs of Trump supporters descending on their Georgia home after Giuliani’s lies about them — $148 million in damages at a December trial.
Liman is a former Manhattan federal prosecutor and corporate defense lawyer who was nominated to the bench by then-President Trump in 2018 at the request of Democrat New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kristin Gillibrand.
