Government

Rudy Giuliani Courts The Death Penalty (Sanctions)

Again.

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Rudy Giuliani Mugshot via Maricopa Sheriffs DeptRudy Giuliani is ready to start 2025 off with a bang. America’s mayor is courting contempt in two federal courtrooms, and he’s on the verge of getting himself a default judgment to boot. Squad goals!

Rudy’s been at this passion project since November of 2020, when he falsely accused Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Atlanta poll workers, of tabulating thousands of fraudulent ballots. In August of 2023, Judge Beryl Howell ordered a default judgment against him, thanks to his utter refusal to comply with his discovery obligations. And in December a jury awarded the plaintiffs $148 million in damages.

Freeman and Moss have been trying to collect on the judgment for a year, with Giuliani stumbling into and out of bankruptcy in an effort to halt collections while he pursues his doomed appeal. Rudy has long since worn out his welcome with Judge Lewis Liman in the Southern District of New York, including by showing up at Mar-a-Lago in a Mercedes the court had already ordered him to hand over to the plaintiffs.

“There should be no higher priority for your client than complying with the court’s orders,” the judge warned Rudy’s new counsel, a Staten Island divorce lawyer named Joseph Cammarata. That admonition came at a hearing two weeks ago when Rudy’s prior lawyers got their exit visas stamped after convincing Judge Liman that they could not ethically continue to represent him in his bid to claim the homestead exemption for his Florida condo.

Things have not improved since then. On December 5, the plaintiffs filed a motion requesting that the court hold Giuliani in contempt and impose death penalty sanctions, barring him from arguing at his January 16 trial that he actually lived in Florida last year.

Giuliani responded by emptying his pockets and hoping a wad of used tissues and an expired Metro card would satisfy the plaintiffs.

It did not:

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Mr. Giuliani’s production of 19 “exhibits” (produced without Bates stamps or metadata) is facially incomplete and nothing more than an exercise in cherry-picking the documents that will be available to adjudicate Plaintiffs’ claims. As one notable example, the production does not include a single text message or email.

Judge Liman rebuffed the letter, sniffing that he’d already scheduled a contempt hearing for the 19th, and “The Court did not contemplate nor did it permit “updates” – from either side – regarding the state of Defendant’s compliance with the Court’s orders.”

And it looks like they’ll have a packed agenda for that hearing, since Rudy has suddenly announced, that he’ll be calling six witnesses, including himself at the trial on January 16. Rudy’s already blown through discovery deadlines without meaningfully responding, and his dingbat henchmen have all ignored subpoenas. And so it’s hardly surprising that the plaintiffs were apoplectic:

Now, more than a month after the deadline to make initial disclosures—on December 8, 2024— Mr. Giuliani served amended disclosures, adding five new witnesses who he now says may possess discoverable information that he may use at trial: Maria Ryan, Ryan Medrano, Joseph Ricci, Michael Ragusa, and Robert Wagner (the “Newly-Disclosed Witnesses”). Mr. Giuliani disclosed that each “is likely to have discoverable information regarding but not limited to the Rudolph W. Giuliani moving to Florida as his permanent residence which he actually and does actually occupy as his domicile.” None of these new witnesses have been deposed and only one has produced documents… Further, Mr. Giuliani did not provide any address, telephone number, or other contact information for either Mr. Ragusa or Robert Wagner. And although Plaintiffs are familiar with Mr. Ragusa from earlier proceedings, Plaintiffs do not know who Mr. Wagner is or how to distinguish him from the multitude of others who share that common name, much less locate him for the purpose of serving a subpoena.

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Meanwhile, Rudy has continued to defame the women, prompting them to return to Judge Howell in DC to ask her to make him knock it off already. Rudy’s been representing himself pro se in that action, but he wangled a few more days to respond to the contempt motion by promising to hire a (non-disbarred) lawyer. Maybe he can finds someone who understands Bates stamps!

Freeman v. Giuliani [New York Docket via Court Listener]
Freeman v. Giuliani [DC Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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