Giuliani testifies he hid his grandfather’s watch from defamed election workers: ‘I felt it could get lost’
Lawyers for two women defamed by Rudy Giuliani have spent months trying to track down his assets to begin chipping away at the $148 million he owes them in damages.
On Friday, he testified for more than three hours in a federal courtroom in Manhattan as attorneys painstakingly poured over his sworn statements in thick stacks of court filings.
Squinting at a small monitor in front of him, the 80-year-old former New York City mayor repeatedly said he never intentionally withheld information about his assets, didn’t recall seeing certain statements, and never willfully disobeyed court orders to turn over his property.
But he admitted he did not want to give the mother-daughter election workers his grandfather’s 120-year-old gold pocketwatch.
“I felt it could get lost if I turned it over,” Giuliani said from the witness stand.
Friday’s seven-hour hearing will be part of District Judge Lewis Liman’s determination whether Donald Trump’s former attorney should be held in contempt for blowing off requests for evidence in a case stemming from a defamation judgment for his false claims against the women in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
Attorneys repeatedly reminded Giuliani that Liman ordered his “unequivocal obligation” to the court’s asset turnover order — or risk facing potentially severe sanctions — but he now claims that he doesn’t know where some of that property is, or if he even had some of it to begin with.
Losing the watch is “the last thing I want,” he said.
He insisted: “I’m not trying to hide it from anyone. I took it upon myself to put it in a safe place. It’s the one thing that means something to me.”
A long list of Giuliani’s assets — including a 1980 Mercedes Benz, his New York penthouse apartment and signed sports memorabilia — was initially included in a bankruptcy filing by Giuliani in his short-lived chapter 11 case after a jury found him liable for defaming election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss as he pursued a spurious legal bid to overturn election results in states that Trump lost.
“Mr. Giuliani, as it stands you’re in violation of the court’s order,” Liman told Giuliani at the end of Friday’s hearing.
Giuliani also claimed in his bankruptcy proceedings that he possessed a signed Joe DiMaggio Yankees jersey, which is also pictured in a frame hanging above a mantle in his Manhattan apartment in a real estate listing.
The jersey wasn’t there when attorneys for election workers showed up last October — and neither was most of the furniture in the apartment, which had been cleared out days earlier. Post-It notes reading “take all” were posted on several pieces of furniture throughout the apartment.
Giuliani said it’s “possible” that the jersey was moved out in that time frame.
