Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss are once again urging a federal judge to compel Rudy Giuliani to cooperate with court orders regarding his surrender of assets to the former Georgia election workers.
In a filing Thursday, Freeman and Moss’ lawyers said Giuliani has failed to provide any documents he had been ordered to hand over ahead of his Jan. 16 trial, when Giuliani is set to challenge the women’s move to seize his Palm Beach, Florida, condo.
The plaintiffs have asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman to hold Giuliani in civil contempt and to impose sanctions on him for “attempting to stonewall what should be a straightforward and abbreviated process.”
“It seems that Mr. Giuliani may be refusing to comply with the Orders in an attempt, at least in part, to force the Court to accept further delay,” their lawyers said in the filing. “Mr. Giuliani’s gamesmanship and willful disregard for court orders and the burdens his litigation misconduct has inflicted on the parties and the Court warrant the entry of these severe sanctions.”
On Friday, Liman ordered Giuliani to respond to the motion by Dec. 19 and to appear at a hearing on the issue on Jan. 3. Giuliani’s lawyer did not immediately respond to MSNBC’s request for comment.
Giuliani has been mired in legal troubles related to the $148 million defamation verdict the women had won against him in December 2023. Freeman and Moss have sought to collect on the judgment since Giuliani’s bankruptcy case was dismissed, as the former New York City mayor has repeatedly blown past court-ordered deadlines to surrender his assets, their lawyers said in court filings.
Liman had previously threatened to hold Giuliani in contempt last month after the disgraced lawyer failed to hand over assets, claiming that he did not know where his possessions were.
What’s more, Freeman and Moss have pointed in filings to livestreams made by Giuliani on November 14 and 16 in which they say he has repeated the defamatory claims against them. The women have asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to hold Giuliani in contempt for allegedly continuing to defame them, and Giuliani is set to appear in court on Dec. 12 for a hearing on that request.