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A federal judge has found Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court after he repeatedly disregarded orders to turn over assets to two former Georgia election workers who won a defamation lawsuit against him in 2022.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman also agreed to impose sanctions, which he said he will decide on later.
“Discovery is not supposed to be a shell game where the hidden ball is moved around and around,” Liman said while announcing his ruling Monday.
During his hourslong testimony on Friday, the first day of the hearing, Giuliani told Liman that he was not purposefully withholding his assets, but instead was disorganized about his matters and uncertain about some of the valuables he owns. He testified that he did not know the location of his signed Joe DiMaggio jersey, for example, saying the last time he saw it was in New York City in September.
“Since it’s missing, I can’t tell you when it would have been moved,” he told an attorney for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in court Friday.
Giuliani continued his testimony remotely at Monday’s hearing.
During Friday’s proceedings, Freeman and Moss’ attorney, Meryl Conant Governski, said her clients were more interested in recovering assets they were owed than pursuing a contempt order. The Georgia women’s legal team has accused Giuliani of repeatedly obstructing the handover of assets to satisfy the nearly $150 million defamation judgment. Giuliani has blown past multiple deadlines to surrender his properties, and the women’s attorneys say they have received only a fraction of what they are owed.
Giuliani, 80, has repeatedly argued that he has turned over what he could and that he didn’t know where all of his assets are, a claim that Liman has called “farcical.” Giuliani also has said that the efforts to seize control of his assets have caused him to struggle to pay his bills.