Giuliani’s son demands Yankees rings from receiver in defamation case

MANHATTAN (CN) ­— Rudy Giuliani’s son Andrew joined a civil case in New York federal court on Wednesday to claw back three Yankees World Series rings from being liquidated to satisfy the $146 million defamation judgment owed to two Georgia election workers the former Trump lawyer falsely accused of election fraud.

Andrew Giuliani, who launched an unsuccessful bid for New York governor in the 2022 Republican primary race, says the Yankees World Series rings are not actually Rudy’s property because the elder Giuliani gifted them to him to him in 2018.

The younger Giuliani filed his motion to intervene in the Southern District of New York, where former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman, a Donald Trump appointee, to give them control of Giuliani’s assets through receivership to fulfill the $146 million defamation judgment against him after he falsely accused them of mishandling ballots during the 2020 election.

Their seizure request includes all his personal assets, including his New York City apartment estimated to be worth more than $5 million. Also included in the request are various pieces of Yankees memorabilia including the World Series rings and a signed Joe DiMaggio shirt, as well as his outstanding claims against both the Republican National Committee and the Trump 2020 campaign for what Giuliani says are roughly $2 million in unpaid legal fees.

In court filing Tuesday evening asking to join the Manhattan case as an intervenor, Andrew Giuliani said his father gifted him the three rings on May 25, 2018, during a celebration of the former New York City mayor’s 74th birthday.

“As a child and young adult, I had spent many nights with my father watching Yankees games and bonding over our love for the team, and I was excited about receiving the rings,” he wrote in a declaration. “He said to me, in substance and in part, ‘I told you when I got these that they would be yours someday, and I want to give them to you now’.”

Represented by Manhattan attorney Scott B. McBride with Lowenstein Sandler, Andrew Giuliani said that transferring to the rings to Freeman and Moss would “would permanently deprive Andrew of his ownership in them.”

The younger Giuliani said his father actually gave him four World Series rings that night in 2018 — one for each of the Yankees’ titles in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000 — but he let Rudy temporarily hold onto and wear the 2000 ring for “Subway Series” against the New York Mets, since he had not worn it during his marriage at the time.

He included as an exhibit a screenshot of an iPhone photograph taken shortly after midnight on May 26, 2018, commemorating Rudy gifting the rings to Andrew and his wife.

Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer Kenneth Caruso on Wednesday afternoon declined to comment on the motion to intervene.

Freeman and Moss’s efforts to collect on the judgment add to Giuliani’s ongoing legal woes, which stem from his various efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Giuliani’s license to practice law in New York had been suspended since 2021, and he was formally disbarred in the state in July 2024.

In August 2023, Giuliani was hit with a “loss by default” after refusing to turn over documents in a defamation case brought by Freeman and Moss.

The women said Giuliani pushed Trump’s lies about a stolen election, resulting in death threats that made them fear for their lives.

Giuliani briefly stalled collection of the $146 million by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in court in White Plains, New York. But a bankruptcy court judge last month tossed out Giuliani’s bankruptcy case, paving the way for Freeman, Moss and other creditors to collect judgment against him.

Freeman and Moss asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman to give them control of Giuliani’s assets through receivership to fulfill the $146 million defamation judgment against him.

The seizure request includes all his personal assets, including his New York City apartment estimated to be worth more than $5 million. Also included in the request are various pieces of Yankees memorabilia, as well as his outstanding claims against both the RNC and the Trump 2020 campaign for what Giuliani says are roughly $2 million in unpaid legal fees.

These efforts to collect add to Giuliani’s ongoing legal woes, which stem from his various efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Giuliani’s license to practice law in New York had been suspended since 2021, and he was formally disbarred last month.

A onetime aspiring golf pro, Andrew Giuliani once brought an unsuccessful due process suit against Duke University’s head golf coach, Orrin Vincent III, in 2008 after he was kicked him off the school’s team.

His familiarity with the sport aided him in his position as a sports liaison at the Trump White House, where he reportedly earned $95,000 per year under the official title “Special Assistant to the President and Associate Director of the Office of Public Liaison.”

Andrew Giuliani frequently attended Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan criminal court earlier this year, showing support for the former president alongside far-right Trump allies Laura Loomer and Vish Burra.

Judge Liman on Wednesday morning granted Giuliani’s request to join the case as intervenor, and ordered to him be present at the next conference on Oct. 17.

The Trump-appointed judge also required Giuliani to make himself available for deposition on or before Nov. 1, 2024, and to produce any requested documents before then.

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