Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
Rudy Giuliani pulled up to the Florida polling station where Donald Trump cast his ballot on Election Day in the Mercedes-Benz he has been ordered to turn over to a pair of election workers he defamed.
The cash-strapped former New York City mayor — who told a bankruptcy court earlier this year that he does not have a driver’s license — sat in the passenger seat of the 1980 SL500 once owned by Lauren Bacall as reporters and cameras swarmed around him on Tuesday.
Hours earlier, a federal judge in New York ordered Trump’s now-disbarred former attorney to appear in person for a hearing on Thursday, after the election workers who have been trying to collect on a $150 million defamation verdict accused him of hiding his property from them.
Giuliani’s attorney told the court that he has a scheduling conflict: a “contractual obligation” to appear on conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell’s website Frank Speech.
Attorneys for the defamed election workers immediately alerted the judge to footage of Giuliani cruising in the Mercedes, accusing him of “flouting his obligations” in the court order to turn over the car, which “expressly prohibits” him from “concealing, encumbering, or transferring any personal property,” and “interfering in any manner with the discharge” of property under the order.
“This latest revelation indicates that he either does not understand those obligations or, more likely, is knowingly disregarding them,” they wrote.
In a statement shared with The Independent, Giuliani’s spokesperson Ted Goodman claimed that the former mayor had requested documents from the women’s lawyers to transfer the title and “haven’t heard back.”
“This is yet another attempt to render Mayor Rudy Giuliani — a man who has improved the lives of more people than almost any other living American — penniless and homeless,” he said.
Giuliani’s head of security Michael Ragusa said in a statement to The Independent that Giuliani “is an 80-year-old man with a bad knee and 9/11-related lung disease” and he “relies on this vehicle as his primary means of transportation in Florida.”
He said Giuliani has a Florida driver’s license. “The way he is being pushed toward poverty by those targeting him —after all he has done for this country — is appalling and it is clearly politically motivated,” Ragusa added.
The car is on a long list of Giuliani’s property — including a Manhattan penthouse, 26 watches, and money he claims he is owed by Trump’s campaign — that a judge ordered him to transfer as part of a judgment from a defamation case brought by the two election workers, who were subject to a wave of abuse and harassment after Giuliani’s false claims that they interfered in 2020 election results.
A jury found Giuliani guilty of defamation last year, and he promptly filed bankruptcy.
That bankruptcy case was dismissed earlier this year, unfreezing a mountain of litigation against Trump’s former attorney.
Last month, Giuliani was ordered to prepare a list of property to be placed into receivership, including the car, his New York apartment, cash from his checking accounts, a signed New York Yankees shirt and other sports memorabilia, a diamond ring, a television, “various items of furniture,” and “any additional property” as determined by the court.
Attorneys for the mother-daughter pair of election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss told the court that Giuliani’s lawyers communicated that they were not “ready” to hand over the apartment.
Giuliani’s team “could not even answer basic questions about the location of the receivership property, including the co-op shares and any particular items of physical property, or the amount of the cash accounts subject to turnover,” according to attorneys for the women.
Last week, when lawyers arrived at Giuliani’s Manhattan penthouse — which he recently tried to sell for $6.5 million — they discovered that most of the valuables inside had already been moved.
His team had also failed to finalized the paperwork to transfer ownership of the apartment to Freeman and Moss, while a bulk of his possessions appeared to have been moved to his Florida condo, in an apparent last-ditch effort to delay the court-ordered judgment.
On Monday night, Judge Lewis Liman ordered that a planned telephone conference will instead be in person, and that Giuliani is required to appear.
Giuliani’s attorney Kenneth Caruso told that court that Giuliani has a “contractual commitment” to appear on a live broadcast on Frank Speech, and “he needs to be in his condo in Palm Beach, where he has his broadcasting equipment.”
Those broadcasts “currently provide Mr. Giuliani’s only source of earned income,” Caruso said. “We respectfully suggest that a loss of income, and an expense for travel to New York, should be avoided, if possible.”
