Ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani’s trial against the Georgia election workers he’s been forced to turn over his assets to has been called off after the two sides reached a settlement that the parties say allows Giuliani to keep his personal belongings, after a trial over several of the former mayor’s assets was slated to begin Thursday but was postponed after Giuliani never showed up to court.
Rudy Giuliani arrives at federal court in Washington D.C. on Jan. 10.
Giuliani said in a statement Thursday that he and the plaintiffs have reached a settlement that allows him to keep “all of my personal belongings,” after the former mayor had been in the process of turning over his assets to election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, whom he was ordered to pay $148 million to for defamation, as he made false claims tying them to election fraud in the 2020 election.
Freeman and Moss similarly said they “agreed to allow Mr. Giuliani to retain his property in exchange for compensation and his promise not to ever defame us,” without specifying how much they will receive in compensation from Giuliani if the settlement goes through.
While the court had already ordered Giuliani to turn over most of his assets—including his New York City apartment, Mercedes-Benz and sports memorabilia—there was still a dispute over whether he has to turn over his Florida condominium and his World Series rings, which were the subject of a trial that was slated to begin Thursday.
The trial over the dispute was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. EST on Thursday, but Giuliani never arrived in court, and the court adjourned the trial until Tuesday morning, without the court or Giuliani’s spokesperson Ted Goodman commenting at all on the former mayor’s absence.
Giuliani and the plaintiffs’ lawyer submitted a letter to the court shortly after, which says the two sides had reached a settlement that, if “certain conditions are met,” would end all the pending litigation between the two sides—calling off the trial and other legal proceedings—and the ex-attorney then said in a subsequent social media statement he had “reached a resolution” with Freeman and Moss “that will result in a satisfaction of the Plaintiffs’ judgment.”
The former mayor said the settlement “does not involve an admission of liability or wrongdoing by any of the Parties,” and he is “satisfied with” the settlement, with Freeman and Moss saying the settlement means “we can now move forward with our lives.”
“This litigation has taken its toll on all parties. This whole episode was unfortunate,” Giuliani said on X Thursday. “I and the Plaintiffs have agreed not to ever talk about each other in any defamatory manner, and I urge others to do the same.”
While Giuliani did not show up to court Thursday, the defendant did post on social media at 10:44 a.m., sharing a video on X of his dog at President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
In addition to the dispute over his assets, Giuliani also faced two instances of being held in contempt of court as part of his litigation against the Georgia election workers. He was held in contempt last week in the New York case for failing to turn over assets to Freeman and Moss, though U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman has not yet imposed any sanctions on Giuliani for contempt. The judge scheduled a hearing on the matter for January 29, which Giuliani and the plaintiffs said should be postponed until February, or dropped if the conditions of the settlement are met. Their settlement suggests the issue will be dropped, assuming the settlement is approved, though Liman still has to rule on their request to have the matter thrown out. The former New York City mayor was also then separately held in contempt for a second time last week in his other case against the Georgia election workers—the original defamation dispute, rather than the separate court proceedings over his assets—because the court found he continued to defame the plaintiffs despite a court order forbidding him from doing so. The ligitants’ suggestion Thursday that their settlement will “result in the conclusion of all litigation currently pending between and among the Parties” makes it likely the settlement would also nullify that dispute as well.
Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing in the cases against him, including after the $148 million judgment, and told the court he had not turned over some assets because he believed the order directing him to do so was overbroad and a “trap,” according to the Associated Press. Goodman and Giuliani decried the case over the former attorney’s assets as an “ongoing politically motivated vendetta against Mayor Giuliani” in a statement after Liman held Giuliani in contempt last week, writing the plaintiffs’ lawyers “might be happy to fight to take away Mayor Giuliani’s most cherished personal belongings … but they can never take away his extraordinary record of public service.”
Giuliani was ordered to pay $148 million to Freeman and Moss in December 2023 based on claims he repeatedly made about them following the 2020 election, which they testified had upended their lives and led to widespread threats against them. His claims have been disproven, with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office declaring them “false and unsubstantiated” following an investigation. The former Trump attorney declared bankruptcy shortly after the nine-figure judgment against him, and an appeals court upheld the judgment against him in April. While he had been ordered to turn over many of his assets, Giuliani had argued he shouldn’t have to turn over his Florida condo, which The New York Times notes is valued at approximately $3.5 million, citing a Florida law that protects a person’s primary residence from being seized by creditors. He also argued he should not have to turn over the New York Yankees World Series rings, because he gave them to his son Andrew Giuliani. Giuliani’s legal saga against the election workers is only one piece in a broader slew of legal issues he’s faced since he led Trump’s unsuccessful legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. He’s also had his law license revoked, been indicted on criminal charges in both Georgia and Arizona and faced other defamation cases brought by voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. Both of those civil cases, which involve false election fraud claims involving the companies’ voting machines, remain pending. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and denies any wrongdoing, and continues to falsely assert there was widespread election fraud in 2020, which there is no evidence to support.