Rudy Giuliani has insisted at a contempt hearing that he is not hiding assets from lawyers trying to recover 148 million dollars (£119 million) after a defamation judgment in favour of two Georgia election workers.
Judge Lewis J Liman seemed less inclined to find the former New York mayor in contempt for failing to turn over some of his assets, including a valuable signed Joe DiMaggio jersey that appeared to go missing after Giuliani said he last saw it around September 11 in his Manhattan apartment.
The contempt hearing in Manhattan comes after Giuliani was found in 2023 to have falsely accused the two workers of tampering with ballots during the 2020 presidential election.
The judge said Giuliani can finish his evidence on Monday by appearing remotely from his Florida residence as he explains why some assets and the paperwork related to them have been hard to locate and forfeit.
When he asked a lawyer for the two election workers if the plaintiffs were more interested in recovering assets than finding Giuliani in contempt, attorney Meryl Conant Governski quickly agreed, saying contempt was not “our primary goal”.
Ms Governski, more matter-of-fact than confrontational, elicited from Giuliani how overwhelmed he felt by court orders coming at him in multiple cases across the country at once.
It was left to the judge, at times, to jump in with a stern statement, like when he told Giuliani flatly: “You’re in violation of a court order at least in regards to that,” referring to the DiMaggio jersey.
Giuliani said repeatedly that he was not purposefully trying to withhold assets. He portrayed himself as forgetful, disorganised at times and having delegated to others some of the chores regarding his assets and the legal case surrounding them.
He complained that the two-week timeframe he was given to respond to some requests “was very short”, compared with how long he was given to provide information in 15 to 20 other court cases he is involved in.
The former mayor said he has turned over all his valuable watches except for a 120-year-old gold watch that his grandfather gave him.
“I was holding it so it didn’t get lost,” he said. “I felt like it could get lost if it was turned over.”
When the judge asked if he understood that the watch was required to be turned over, he said he “wasn’t trying to hide it from anyone” and would give it up “if you can assure me you’ll put it in a safe place”.
Giuliani said the New York Yankees baseball team had been very good to him and at one point he had as many as 100 Yankees items, but he gave most of these away, including signed pictures of Reggie Jackson and Joe DiMaggio together and another of Yogi Berra and Babe Ruth.
“I get confused about what I have and don’t have,” he said, claiming he lost some belongings during his most recent divorce six years ago.
The election workers’ lawyers say Giuliani has displayed a “consistent pattern of wilful defiance” of Judge Liman’s order in October 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 this week that he has turned over a Mercedes-Benz and his New York apartment but not the paperwork necessary to monetise the assets.
And they said he has failed to surrender watches and sports memorabilia, including the DiMaggio jersey, and not “a single dollar from his non-exempt cash accounts”.
Judge Liman said in an order last week that Giuliani’s lawyer should be ready to explain why he should not be held in contempt with resulting sanctions that could make it less likely he gets to keep his Florida home.
A trial over the disposition of the Palm Beach condominium and World Series rings is scheduled for mid-January.
Giuliani says 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.
