Rudy Giuliani must turn over sports memorabilia and other prized possessions to two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him, including his New York City apartment, more than two dozen luxury watches and a 1980 Mercedes once owned by movie star Lauren Bacall, a judge ruled Tuesday.
But U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan also said Giuliani does not have to give the election workers three New York Yankees World Series rings or his Florida condominium — for now — noting those assets are tied up in other litigation.
The property Giuliani must relinquish is expected to fetch several million dollars for Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. They won the $148 million judgment over Giuliani’s false ballot fraud claims against them related to the 2020 presidential election. They said Giuliani pushed Donald Trump’s lies about the election being stolen, which led to death threats that made them fear for their lives.
Under Tuesday's order, Giuliani must relinquish within seven days his Manhattan apartment, estimated at more than $5 million, as well as his interest in about $2 million that he says Trump's 2020 presidential campaign owes him for his services.
Also on the list of assets that must be given to Freeman and Moss are a 1980 Mercedes-Benz SL 500 previously owned by Bacall; a shirt and picture signed, respectively, by Yankees legends Joe DiMaggio and Reggie Jackson; a signed Yankee Stadium picture; a diamond ring; costume jewelry and 26 watches including a Rolex, five Shinolas, two Bulovas and a Tiffany & Co.
In court documents filed earlier this year, Giuliani estimated the Mercedes was worth about $25,000, and the watches, World Series rings and costume jewelry at about $30,000. He said the value of his sports memorabilia was unknown.
One of those watches was given to Giuliani by his grandfather and he asked that he be allowed to keep it because of its sentimental value. But Liman rejected the request, saying Giuliani could have had it exempted if he had proven it was worth less than $1,000 — but he did not do so.
“The Court also does not doubt that certain of the items may have sentimental value to Defendant,” the judge added. “But that does not entitle Defendant to continued enjoyment of the assets to the detriment of the Plaintiffs to whom he owes approximately $150 million. It is, after all, the underlying policy of these New York statutes that ‘no man should be permitted to live at the same time in luxury and in debt.’”
Liman wrote that Freeman and Moss would be allowed to sell off the property and “ensure that the liquidation of the transferred assets is accomplished quickly.”
Giuliani had asked the judge to bar Freeman and Moss from selling any of his assets until after his appeal of the judgment is completed. Liman also rejected that request, saying Giuliani could have asked the federal court in Washington, D.C., where Freeman and Moss won their case, to stay any asset sales pending his appeal, but he did not.
Giuliani's lawyers, Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski, said in a statement Tuesday night, "Stay tuned. When the judgment is reversed in the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., these Plaintiffs will be required to return all this property to Mr. Giuliani. We repeat, stay tuned.”
To date, Giuliani has not paid Freeman and Moss anything.
“We are proud that our clients will finally begin to receive some of the compensation to which they are entitled for Giuliani’s actions,” Aaron Nathan, a lawyer for Freeman and Moss, said in a statement. “This outcome should send a powerful message that there is a price to pay for those who choose to intentionally spread disinformation.”
As for the World Series rings, Giuliani's son, Andrew, filed court documents earlier this month saying he actually is the rightful owner. He said his father gave him four rings — one for each of the Yankees’ championships in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 — as gifts in 2018. Rudy Giuliani received the rings during his tenure as mayor of New York City. The younger Giuliani's claim is pending in federal court in Manhattan.
Freeman and Moss also asked Liman to order Rudy Giuliani to turn over his condo in Palm Beach, Florida, estimated to be worth more than $3 million. But that property is tied up in other litigation, with Giuliani claiming it should be exempt because it is his primary residence. Freeman and Moss have a lien on the Florida property.
Liman said he would take up the Florida condo at a hearing Oct. 28, and he barred Giuliani from selling the property or taking any action that would diminish its value.
After the $148 million verdict, Giuliani filed for bankruptcy, which froze attempts by Freeman and Moss to collect the award. But a judge in July threw out the case citing repeated “uncooperative conduct,” including a failure to comply with court orders and disclose sources of income.
FILE - Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, a former Georgia election worker, is comforted by her mother, Ruby Freeman, right, as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol continues to reveal its findings of a year-long investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, June 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - Rudy Giuliani speaks during a news conference outside federal court in Washington, Dec. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
MIAMI, Florida (AP) — Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on Tuesday said she would work to bring more funds to community banks to help Latino men secure small business loans, while Republican Donald Trump's economic roundtable aimed at Latino voters devolved into a tirade of insults against his opponent.
Harris said in an interview with Telemundo that “we need to construct a strong economy that supports the working class.”
“I know that Hispanic men often have more difficulty securing loans from banks because of their connections and the fact that things aren’t necessarily set up so that they will qualify," she said in an interview in English that was translated into Spanish. "For that reason, I’m focused on seeing what we can do to bring more capital to community banks that better understand the community so we can give them that kind of loans.”
In response to Trump's claims that she was a socialist, she said: “I'm a capitalist. I'm a pragmatic capitalist.”
Trump, meanwhile, described Harris as “lazy," railed against green energy and talked about “extreme" presidential power during remarks at his golf club in Doral, a Miami suburb.
Insisting President Joe Biden did not need congressional approval to curb illegal immigration, he said: “As president, you have tremendous — it’s called extreme power. You have extreme power."
Trump also continued to hammer Harris as “low IQ” and invoked a racist trope, calling her “lazy as hell” for not holding any public events Tuesday. She was in Washington for meetings and was scheduled for TV interviews with Telemundo and NBC after more than two straight weeks of campaigning.
“Who the hell takes off when you have 14 days left?” he asked.
The Trump and Harris campaigns see what could be an election-deciding opportunity with Latino men, who could swing the outcome in states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada if their traditional support for Democrats erodes. Trump believes he’s made inroads among Latino men. Harris’ team is seeking to shore up support within the same group with the election just two weeks away.
The effort sets up a question of whether memories of a Trump presidency or the promise of new policies under Harris will do more to energize Latino voters.
”We are very confident that these policies resonate because we’ve seen them resonate in speeches and focus groups,” said Matt Barreto, a Harris campaign pollster. “It speaks to Latino men in particular about being successful and achieving the American dream.”
In 2020, AP VoteCast found that 9% of voters nationwide identified as Latino, and 63% of them backed Biden in the election. That race was defined broadly by the pandemic that shut down much of the country, whereas this year’s race has issues such as the economy, immigration, abortion rights and democracy at the forefront.
Harris said she would work to double the number of registered apprenticeships. She is stressing how she would remove college degree requirements for certain federal government jobs and encourage private employers to do likewise. Harris also wants to provide forgivable loans worth up to $20,000 each to 1 million small businesses.
During Trump's event, he sat after his opening remarks as elected officials and business leaders who are Latino praised the economy during his administration, thanking him specifically for tax cuts he signed in 2017.
Later, he claimed that he had recently seen a solar field “that looked like it took up half the desert.”
“It’s all steel and glass and wires. And it looks like hell,” he says. “You see rabbits, they get caught in it.” Trump often rails against wind power, claiming the turbines “kill all the birds” and confuse whales.
At the close of the event, Latino faith leaders prayed over Trump, his head bowed as some placed their hands on his shoulders. Guillermo Maldonado, senior pastor of King Jesus International Ministry, said during the prayer that "there’s a higher assignment for him to finish with this nation.”
Both campaigns were jockeying for an edge with the increasingly diverse electorate in the closing weeks of the campaign. Harris has also focused on Black men, to whom she also pitched the forgivable loans for small businesses. She went on the podcast “Call Her Daddy” to appeal to younger women, while Trump has appeared on podcasts to target younger men.
In a close race, the Harris campaign is betting that Latino men are getting more attuned to policy specifics as the election draws closer.
Based on focus groups, Barreto said the Harris campaign found that Latino men in particular wanted access to apprenticeships that could give people without college degrees access to a financially stable career.
The latest Labor Department figures show there are 641,044 registered apprenticeships, an increase from the Trump administration, when apprenticeships peaked in 2020 at 569,311. Doubling that figure, as Harris has proposed, would put the total number of apprenticeships at roughly 1.2 million over four years.
Latino men also expressed a need for access to capital and credit to start companies, as the Treasury Department reported on Oct. 10 that Latino business ownership is up 40% over pre-pandemic levels and could keep climbing with better financing options.
Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will be on Univision’s “El Bueno, La Mala, y El Feo,” a syndicated radio show, this week, while Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, will be interviewed this week by Univision’s nationally syndicated afternoon radio program “El Free-Guey Show.” Emhoff will also be interviewed by Alex “El Genio” Lucas on Nueva Network Radio.
Trump hopes to convince Latinos that they can trust a fellow businessman such as himself, even as he's also called for the mass deportation of immigrants in the country illegally.
“Hispanic people — they say you can’t generalize, but I think you can — they have wonderful entrepreneurship and they have — oh, do you have such energy. Just ease up a little bit, OK? Ease up,” Trump said at an Oct. 12 event. “You have great ambition, you have great energy, very smart, and you really do like natural entrepreneurs.”
Boak reported from Washington. Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon and Stephany Matat in Miami and Kevin Freking and Alana Durkin Richer in Washington also contributed to this report.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., attend a campaign event Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Brookfield, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris departs Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, on return to Washington after several days on the campaign trail. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Supporters cheer before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Greensboro Coliseum, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Supporters cheer before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Greensboro Coliseum, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Latino leaders pray with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump as he participates in a Latino leader roundtable, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024 in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Participants pray for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump during a roundtable with Latino leaders, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024 in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable with Latino leaders Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable with Latino leaders Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024 in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable with Latino leaders, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024 in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable with Latino leaders Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024 in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - This combination of photos shows Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris during an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a faith event at the Concord Convention Center, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Concord, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., attend a campaign event Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Brookfield, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
