AFP, NEW YORK
A judge on Tuesday instructed Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, to turn over valuables and his luxury Manhattan apartment to two election workers he was found to have defamed.
In December last year, a federal jury in Washington ordered him to pay US$148 million to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss for repeatedly making false claims that they engaged in 2020 election fraud.
Giuliani was found liable last year by US District Judge Beryl Howell of defaming Freeman and Moss, both Fulton County poll workers, with his 2020 election lies on behalf of former US president Donald Trump.
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani attends a remembrance ceremony on the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center at Ground Zero in New York on Sept. 11.
Photo: AFP
An eight-person federal jury awarded Freeman and Moss more than US$16 million each for defamation, US$20 million each for emotional distress and US$75 million in punitive damages.
Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in December last year over the order.
“Defendant is ordered … to transfer all personal property specified in the list below … including cash accounts, jewelry and valuables, a legal claim for unpaid attorneys’ fees, and his interest in his Madison Avenue co-op apartment,” a Manhattan court filing said.
Giuliani has seven days to make the transfer to a receivership under the control of Freeman and Moss, it said.
The former mayor of New York City, who led Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the results of the election, posted a video of Freeman and Moss that falsely accused them of engaging in fraud during ballot counting and made numerous other baseless claims about them.
