Giuliani was indicted, found liable for defamation and nearly bankrupt. Now he could land in jail
Hours before a final deadline to answer why he should not be held in contempt of court for repeatedly lying about women he defamed, Rudy Giuliani was hit with yet another threat of contempt, in a separate court, by the same women.
“Severe” sanctions are warranted, they argued.
Donald Trump’s former attorney is now juggling motions against him in Washington, DC and in Manhattan, where he is also in the middle of a protracted legal battle to relinquish a long list of property and valuables to chip away at the nearly $150m he owes the mother-daughter duo.
The former New York City mayor — who falsely accused Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss of manipulating election results in the volatile aftermath of the 2020 presidential election — is also a criminal co-defendant alongside the president-elect in Georgia, and among more than a dozen Trump allies facing criminal charges in a similar election interference case in Arizona.
He filed for bankruptcy shortly after a jury determined he must pay the women $148m for his defamatory statements about them. A judge initially tossed his bankruptcy case, citing his lack of financial transparency and apparent attempts to evade court orders, leaving Giuliani’s lawyers and the people to whom he owes money trying to figure out how he would pay tens of thousands of dollars he owes in court fees, and whether he actually can pay any of it.
The parties ultimately agreed to dissolve the case, unfreezing a mountain of lawsuits against him.
Four months later, the 80-year-old former mayor faces the prospect of greater financial penalties, or even jail, after failing to keep up with — or purposefully trying to avoid — the ongoing legal fallout from election conspiracy theories that defined his spurious attempts to keep Trump in office in 2020.
The Independent has requested comment from a spokesperson for Giuliani.
He remains under a court order that prevents him from saying anything that resembles his defamatory statements.
But he has recently accused the women of “quadruple counting the ballots” and “passing hard drives that we maintain were used to fix” voting machines — echoing similar claims that landed him in a trial court for defamation last year.
His statements “repeat the exact same lies for which [he] has already been held liable, and which he agreed to be bound by court order to stop repeating,” attorney Michael Gottlieb wrote in a court filing in Washington, DC on November 20.
Giuliani missed a deadline to respond to the women’s demand for contempt. He sent a letter to the judge himself, two days after blowing the initial deadline, asking for a 30-day extension, because he needed “more time” to find an attorney.
He said four have turned him down.
Giuliani told the judge that his prospective attorneys believe she is “unreasonable” and “biased” against Trump, and that an outcome is a “foregone conclusion” and a “no-win proposition.”
