Rudy Giuliani will return to court Thursday for a trial that will determine ownership of some of his most valuable assets: a Florida condo and New York Yankees World Series rings.
Trump’s former lawyer will be the first witness called before a federal court in New York, marking the third time he will testify under oath in the last two weeks.
Lawyers for Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, the former Georgia election workers defamed by Giuliani, want the condo and rings turned over to help satisfy the $146 million judgment against them.
Giuliani’s attorney, Joseph Cammarata, said in court papers that the Florida home cannot be seized because it has protected status under state law and that the rings no longer belong to Giuliani because he gave them to his son, Andrew Giuliani. years ago.
Andrew Giuliani has argued in a court filing that the rings are his property.
“[O]No earlier than May 26, 2018, Mayor Giuliani gifted his son, Andrew Giuliani, four New York Yankees World Series rings, one for each of the Yankees’ titles in 1996, 1998, 1999. and 2000, and each one of them engraved with the name. ‘Giuliani,’ which had been purchased by Mayor Giuliani after he had completed his second term as mayor of New York City in or around 2002,” his filing said.
Lawyers for Freeman and Moss are skeptical of Andrew Giuliani’s account; They are looking for three of the four rings.
Rudy Giuliani, a Yankees superfan, listed the rings as his property in his bankruptcy case last year, and they were in his possession until at least 2023, lawyers for Freeman and Moss said.
While Giuliani was “a meticulous reporter of gifts to the IRS,” he never noted the gift on his tax returns, they added.
In his deposition last month, Giuliani testified that he had given the rings to his son but forgot that he had done so. “I remember talking about the rings and him telling me and reminding me that I gave them to him,” Giuliani said, according to the filing.
Andrew Giuliani said he reminded his father and his father’s bankruptcy attorney that the rings belonged to him last January. But their father still claimed them as his assets a month later, according to Freeman and Moss’s filing.
The lawyers also noted that Andrew Giuliani acknowledged that his father did not physically give him the rings until sometime in 2023, about five years after they were allegedly gifted to him, while Giuliani faced numerous lawsuits, including those from Freeman and Moss.
“Even if disputed, the defendant’s possession is well documented. The defendant has been photographed throughout this period wearing the World Series rings,” the document said.
Giuliani was found liable for defaming Freeman and Moss by repeatedly, falsely, accusing them of committing election fraud in 2020. A jury awarded them $148 million in damages in December 2023. A judge later reduced the award to $146 million. of dollars.
Giuliani is appealing that verdict, but Freeman and Moss have moved to seize his assets while the case is litigated. He has already been ordered to hand over cash, his car, his multimillion-dollar New York apartment and other sports memorabilia.
Giuliani maintains that Freeman and Moss have no right to his Florida home, which he says he made his permanent residence last January.
Lawyers for Freeman and Moss are also skeptical. They noted that Giuliani listed his New York apartment as his primary residence in a bankruptcy filing in March and that in August he applied for a bank account at a New Hampshire credit union, checking a box that said “live or work in NH.” .
They maintain that Giuliani was using the Florida condo as he had for years, as a winter home, until Freeman and Moss placed a lien on the property on August 8.
“Mr. Giuliani’s own evidence in this case shows that he spent approximately the same amount of time at the Palm Beach condominium in the first half of 2024 as he did in prior years: approximately four months,” his filing said.
Cammarata has responded that Giuliani obtained “a property tax exemption from the Palm Beach County Tax Assessor” last year and also registered to vote and obtained a driver’s license in Florida.
“Under Florida law and the Florida Constitution, there is no mandatory number of days that the defendant would have to sleep in his Florida condominium unit,” he wrote.
The bench trial before U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman is expected to last a day or two, with closing arguments scheduled for Tuesday.
