In a brazen act of defiance, disgraced former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani arrived at a Florida polling site to cast his vote in the 2024 presidential election behind the wheel of a Mercedes Benz convertible he was supposed to have surrendered to authorities over a week ago. The classic 1980s vehicle, once owned by Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall, was among the lavish assets Giuliani was ordered to turn over as part of a staggering $148 million settlement owed to two Georgia poll workers he maliciously defamed.
According to court documents, Giuliani has been actively concealing the whereabouts of the receivership property from Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, the recipients of the substantial sum. Aaron Nathan, the attorney representing the wronged poll workers, fired off a scathing letter to presiding Judge Lewis Liman, accusing Giuliani of not only failing to disclose the location of the assets but also orchestrating the removal of furnishings from his $5 million Manhattan apartment in direct violation of the court’s receivership order.
“[Giuliani] has yet to reveal where the vast majority of the receivership property is actually located, despite repeated requests to his counsel. That silence is especially outrageous given the revelation that the defendant apparently took affirmative steps to move his property out of the New York apartment in recent weeks, while a restraining notice was in effect.”
– Aaron Nathan, attorney for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss
Judge Orders Giuliani to Appear in Court
Responding swiftly to the damning allegations, Judge Liman has summoned Giuliani to appear at a hearing in New York on Thursday. However, Giuliani’s attorney, Kenneth Caruso, has requested a postponement, citing his client’s prior commitment to hosting a radio broadcast from Florida that evening. Caruso maintains that Giuliani, who filed for bankruptcy last year, remains willing to comply with the court’s directives but claims he has not received adequate instruction on how to surrender the property in question.
Nathan dismissed Caruso’s assertion as “misleading,” while Giuliani’s spokesperson Ted Goodman insisted that the former mayor has made his possessions available as ordered, with only a “few items” placed in storage over the past year. Goodman further contended that any additional items removed were related to Giuliani’s nightly livestreams and therefore exempt from the settlement—a claim that has sparked its own separate lawsuit concerning Giuliani’s Palm Beach apartment.
Giuliani’s Unapologetic Arrival at the Polls
Undeterred by the legal turmoil swirling around him, Giuliani cut a defiant figure as he arrived at the Palm Beach polling site, sporting a New York fire department hat and a stars-and-stripes shirt. Perched in the passenger seat of the contentious Mercedes SL500, the embattled attorney spoke briefly with reporters but declined to comment on the settlement dispute.
Giuliani’s head of security, Michael Ragusa, attempted to justify his boss’s retention of the luxury vehicle, citing the 80-year-old’s health concerns and reliance on the car for transportation in a state lacking the comprehensive public transit of New York City. Ragusa decried the efforts to “push [Giuliani] toward poverty” as “appalling” and “politically motivated,” given the former mayor’s extensive record of public service.
Mounting Legal Woes for the Former Mayor
The Mercedes controversy is but the latest chapter in Giuliani’s precipitous fall from grace. Once hailed as “America’s Mayor” for his leadership in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Giuliani has become a central figure in Donald Trump’s failed attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. His relentless promotion of baseless voter fraud claims and amplification of misleading videos targeting Freeman and Moss led to a cascade of death threats and harassment for the innocent poll workers, ultimately culminating in the massive defamation settlement.
With his law license suspended and his personal finances in shambles, Giuliani now faces an uphill battle to satisfy the court’s demands and rebuild his tattered reputation. As the 2024 presidential race heats up, with Trump once again vying for the White House against Vice President Kamala Harris, the spectacle of his former attorney’s unapologetic defiance of legal obligations is sure to cast a long shadow over the campaign trail.
As the nation watches this latest twist in the Giuliani saga unfold, many are left wondering whether the once-celebrated public figure will ever be held fully accountable for his actions or if he will continue to evade the consequences of his increasingly erratic behavior. The resolution of this asset forfeiture dispute may well prove a pivotal moment in determining the ultimate fate of Rudy Giuliani, a man whose legacy has become inextricably entwined with the tumultuous political landscape of the post-Trump era.
