NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York City on Monday said that Rudy Giuliani was in contempt of court for failing to properly respond to requests for information as he turned over assets to satisfy a $148 million defamation judgment granted to two Georgia election workers.
Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled after hearing Giuliani testify for a second day at a contempt hearing called after lawyers for the election workers said the former New York City mayor had failed to properly comply with evidence production requests over the last few months.
On Friday, Giuliani testified for about three hours in Liman’s Manhattan courtroom, but the judge permitted him to finish testifying remotely on Monday from his condominium in Palm Beach, Florida.
At the start of the hearing Monday, Giuliani had an American flag backdrop, which he said he uses for a program he conducts over the internet, but the judge told him to change it to a plain background.
Giuliani conceded during Monday’s testimony that he sometimes did not turn over everything requested because he believed the requests were overly broad or inappropriate or even a “trap” set by lawyers for the plaintiffs.
He also said he sometimes had trouble turning over information regarding his assets because of numerous criminal and civil court cases requiring him to produce factual information.
Giuliani, 80, said the demands to turn over materials made it “impossible to function in an official way” about 30% to 40% of the time.
The election workers’ lawyers say Giuliani has displayed a “consistent pattern of willful defiance” of Liman’s October order to give up assets after he was found liable in 2023 for defaming their clients by falsely accusing them of tampering with ballots during the 2020 presidential election.
They said in court papers that he has turned over a Mercedes-Benz and his New York apartment but not the paperwork necessary to monetize the assets. And they said he has failed to surrender watches and sports memorabilia, including a Joe DiMaggio jersey, and has not turned over “a single dollar from his nonexempt cash accounts.”
Giuliani said Monday that he was investigating what happened to the DiMaggio jersey and that he currently doesn’t know where it is or who has it.
Aaron Nathan, a lawyer for the election workers, asked the judge to make inferences about what Giuliani had not turned over — such as the list of his doctors over the last four years — that would make it more likely the court would conclude that the Palm Beach property was not Giuliani’s primary residence and thus is not protected from seizure.
Joseph Cammarata, Giuliani’s attorney, said reaching such a conclusion would be like a civil “death penalty” and would cause Giuliani to lose the Florida property even before a trial in mid-January, when the judge is supposed to hear testimony and view evidence before deciding the disposition of the condominium and World Series rings.
Giuliani has insisted that the Palm Beach property is his personal residence now and should be shielded from the judgment.
His lawyers have predicted that he will eventually win custody of the items on appeal.