A US federal judge on Tuesday order Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani to hand over his Manhattan apartment, collectible Mercedes-Benz and a slew of other treasures to two Georgia election workers he defamed by falsely claiming they tried to cheat former President Donald Trump out of the 2020 US Presidential elections.
According to a report in CNBC, Giuliani will also lose items signed by Yankees baseball legends Joe DiMaggio and Reggie Jackson, a diamond ring and more than two dozen watches.
The 1980 Mercedes was previously owned by famed actress Lauren Bacall, for instance, and one of the watches belonged to Giuliani’s grandfather. Another watch was gifted to Giuliani by the president of France after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Giuliani was mayor of New York City, CNBC reported.
Freeman and Moss sued Giuliani for defamation after he repeatedly targeted the two women with false election fraud claims as part of his efforts to overturn Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
In December, a federal jury in Washington, DC, ordered the former mayor to pay them more than $148 million in punitive damages and for emotional distress and defamation.
Giuliani filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition to shield himself from sudden financial ruin, but a New York federal bankruptcy judge dismissed his case, the report said.
Giuliani has so far paid none of the nine-figure defamation judgment against him, and he has not obtained a court stay that would allow him to delay paying off that massive debt, the court said in its order.
The court also allowed the plaintiffs to pursue a debt that Giuliani says he is still owed for his work after the 2020 election, totaling about $2 million that Trump’s 2020 campaign and the Republican National Committee have failed to pay.
Giuliani has seven days to hand over those items and more to a receivership controlled by former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Liman ruled.
Giuliani repeatedly targeted the two women with false election fraud claims as part of his efforts to overturn Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
“The profound irony manifest in Defendant’s alleged concern is not lost on the Court,” the judge wrote.
“By his own admission, Defendant defamed Plaintiffs by perpetuating lies about them. Defendant’s lies cast unwarranted doubt on the integrity of the ballot-counting in Fulton County, Georgia in the immediate wake of the 2020 Presidential election, he added.