Rudy Giuliani is able to begin 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 as well. Squad targets!
Rudy’s been at this ardour mission since November of 2020, when he falsely accused Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Atlanta ballot staff, of tabulating 1000’s of fraudulent ballots. In August of 2023, Choose Beryl Howell ordered a default judgment in opposition to him, because of his utter refusal to conform together with his discovery obligations. And in December a jury awarded the plaintiffs $148 million in damages.
Freeman and Moss have been making an attempt to gather on the judgment for a yr, with Giuliani stumbling into and out of chapter in an effort to halt collections whereas he pursues his doomed enchantment. Rudy has lengthy since worn out his welcome with Choose Lewis Liman within the Southern District of New York, together with by displaying up at Mar-a-Lago in a Mercedes the court docket had already ordered him handy over to the plaintiffs.
“There must be no larger precedence on your consumer than complying with the court docket’s orders,” the decide warned Rudy’s new counsel, a Staten Island divorce lawyer named Joseph Cammarata. That admonition got here at a listening to two weeks in the past when Rudy’s prior legal professionals bought their exit visas stamped after convincing Choose Liman that they may not ethically proceed to symbolize him in his bid to assert the homestead exemption for his Florida apartment.
Issues haven’t improved since then. On December 5, the plaintiffs filed a movement requesting that the court docket maintain Giuliani in contempt and impose demise penalty sanctions, barring him from arguing at his January 16 trial that he really lived in Florida final yr.
Giuliani responded by emptying his pockets and hoping a wad of used tissues and an expired Metro card would fulfill the plaintiffs.
It didn’t:
Mr. Giuliani’s manufacturing of 19 “reveals” (produced with out Bates stamps or metadata) is facially incomplete and nothing greater than an train in cherry-picking the paperwork that can be out there to adjudicate Plaintiffs’ claims. As one notable instance, the manufacturing doesn’t embody a single textual content message or electronic mail.
Choose Liman rebuffed the letter, sniffing that he’d already scheduled a contempt listening to for the nineteenth, and “The Court docket didn’t ponder nor did it allow “updates” – from both aspect – relating to the state of Defendant’s compliance with the Court docket’s orders.”
And it seems like they’ll have a packed agenda for that listening to, since Rudy has instantly introduced, that he’ll be calling six witnesses, together with himself on the trial on January 16. Rudy’s already blown by way of discovery deadlines with out meaningfully responding, and his dingbat henchmen have all ignored subpoenas. And so it’s hardly stunning that the plaintiffs had been apoplectic:
Now, greater than a month after the deadline to make preliminary disclosures—on December 8, 2024— Mr. Giuliani served amended disclosures, including 5 new witnesses who he now says might possess discoverable info that he might use at trial: Maria Ryan, Ryan Medrano, Joseph Ricci, Michael Ragusa, and Robert Wagner (the “Newly-Disclosed Witnesses”). Mr. Giuliani disclosed that every “is more likely to have discoverable info relating to however not restricted to the Rudolph W. Giuliani transferring to Florida as his everlasting residence which he really and does really occupy as his domicile.” None of those new witnesses have been deposed and just one has produced paperwork… Additional, Mr. Giuliani didn’t present any handle, phone quantity, or different contact info for both Mr. Ragusa or Robert Wagner. And though Plaintiffs are conversant in Mr. Ragusa from earlier proceedings, Plaintiffs have no idea who Mr. Wagner is or the best way to distinguish him from the multitude of others who share that widespread title, a lot much less find him for the aim of serving a subpoena.
In the meantime, Rudy has continued to defame the ladies, prompting them to return to Choose Howell in DC to ask her to make him knock it off already. Rudy’s been representing himself professional se in that motion, however he wangled just a few extra days to answer the contempt movement by promising to rent a (non-disbarred) lawyer. Perhaps he can finds somebody 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 the place she produces the Legislation and Chaos substack and podcast.
