Judge to determine whether Rudy Giuliani must turn over his $3.5 million Florida condo to the election workers he defamed

By Katelyn Polantz, CNN

(CNN) — The fate of Rudy Giuliani’s $3.5 million Palm Beach, Florida, condo, which he says is his primary residence, is now in the hands of a federal judge in Manhattan.

The former mayor of New York and prominent Donald Trump political advocate plans to stay in the Palm Beach condo now but will be blocked from doing anything that could diminish its value while the judge sorts out whether his creditors can seize it, Judge Lewis Liman said at a court hearing Monday.

The development in Giuliani’s debt saga comes as two Georgia election workers continue to pursue him in court for the $150 million he owes them for defaming them after the 2020 election when he was a lawyer for Trump. Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss are a day away from taking control of a collection of Giuliani’s prized possessions and the only other property he owns, a $6 million Manhattan apartment.

“Preparations are being made,” Freeman and Moss’ lawyer, Aaron Nathan, said in court on Monday about how his team will get access to the New York apartment; roughly two dozen luxury watches; gifts Giuliani received after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; baseball memorabilia including a signed Joe DiMaggio jersey; and a Mercedes-Benz once owned by Lauren Bacall, among other valuables.

Freeman and Moss are expected to attempt to sell the apartment and the other items to pay down a fraction of the $150 million debt, according to court records.

A week after a judge ordered he turn over those valuables, the court hearing brought few answers from Giuliani’s lawyer. The hearing took place before Liman, on the 15th floor of a courthouse that was built when Giuliani was mayor, and that has a picture of him from the building’s dedication ceremony on display in its marble lobby.

Giuliani’s attorney Kenneth Caruso wouldn’t say in court when Giuliani made the Palm Beach condo his primary residence, instead of New York.

Where he lived primarily is a major issue that the judge could decide in the coming weeks, and if the court says Giuliani didn’t properly make it his home before late this summer, he stands to lose the condo.

“Better have him answer the question now. It’s an answer he presumably knows, if what he says is true,” Nathan told the judge Monday, pushing for a quick answer on the date Giuliani says he moved to Florida. Nathan says his team believes the Palm Beach condo is primarily a vacation home, and Giuliani spent less than half the summer there, instead living mostly in New Hampshire, with trips to New York, the Republican National Convention and the summer Olympics in Paris.

“Let me lay down a marker on the way humans live their lives,” Caruso responded in court on Giuliani’s primary home. “Momentous decisions like that get made over time.”

After the hearing ended, Caruso told CNN Giuliani’s “first step in the process” of relocating came in July 2023, when he put his Manhattan apartment on the market with Sotheby’s.

Four New York Yankees World Series rings are also part of the legal battle where Freeman and Moss want their debt paid. Giuliani’s son, Andrew, has told the court his father gave him the rings at his 74th birthday party in 2018. But in court, Freeman and Moss’ attorneys told the judge they have been trying for months unsuccessfully to get access to Giuliani’s tax returns – which should have declared the gift of the rings, worth tens of thousands each.

Giuliani didn’t attend the court hearing. His attorney told CNN he couldn’t say if the former mayor was still in New York, a day after speaking at Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden.

At the rally, Giuliani hinted at conspiracy theories around Trump’s attempted assassination this summer, but he didn’t address his issues in court or the belief he had repeated many times before that the 2020 election was stolen.

“I’m not going to do conspiracy and I’m not not going to do conspiracy. But it’s kind of funny that they tried everything else and now they’re trying to kill him. They better not try again,” Giuliani said.

He is barred by a court order from repeating false information about Freeman and Moss or insinuating that votes in Georgia in the last election were tampered with.

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