Giuliani reaches settlement over home and baseball rings in defamation case

A settlement was reached on Thursday between Rudy Giuliani and two former Georgia election workers to decide the ownership of his Florida condominium and three World Series rings, which were sought to satisfy a 148 million US dollar (£121 million) defamation judgment against him.

The deal negated the need for a trial that was supposed to begin on Thursday morning at a federal court in Manhattan, where Giuliani was scheduled to be the first witness.

He never came to court. The former Georgia election workers won the judgment against him. Terms of the settlement were not immediately disclosed.

Giuliani, 80, was to testify before the same judge who last week found him in contempt for failing to turn over information on some of his assets to the women’s lawyers.

Giuliani, who served for a time as personal attorney to President-elect Donald Trump during his first term, also was found in contempt last week in Washington DC.

The judge there found that Giuliani continued to slander the election workers by repeating false claims that they counted votes corruptly in the 2020 presidential contest.

The trial was not intended to relitigate whether Giuliani defamed the women or the amount of the judgment against him, both of which are issues that have been decided, but rather to determine whether he would get to keep certain valuable assets instead of turning them over.

Among them was his condominium in Palm Beach, Florida. The former mayor says he established residence there in January 2024, but lawyers for the election workers say he continued to operate as if his New York apartment was his residence until it was surrendered in the autumn as part of the judgment.

Also at stake were three World Series rings that Giuliani says he gave to his son, Andrew, in 2018.

Lawyers for the election workers say Giuliani listed the Manhattan apartment as his residence and the rings as his property when he filed for bankruptcy in December 2023, an application that was dismissed six months later by a judge who accused him of “unco-operative conduct,” self-dealing and a lack of transparency.

Giuliani’s total assets are not expected to amount to much more than 10 million dollars (£8 million). The Palm Beach condominium is believed to be worth more than 3.0 million dollars (£2.45 million).

He has already surrendered a New York apartment worth about 5 million dollars (£4 million), a 1980 Mercedes once owned by movie star Lauren Bacall, numerous luxury watches and other assets.

The election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, won the defamation judgment after saying Giuliani’s lies about the 2020 presidential election being stolen led to death threats that made them fear for their lives.