Rudy Giuliani’s lawyers want to ditch the former Big Apple mayor, claiming they disagree on a legal strategy as he seeks to wriggle out of a $148 million defamation judgment he owes to two Georgia election workers.
The four-page document filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court is heavily redacted and light on details, but lawyers Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski want off the case where Giuliani’s Big Apple pad, Yankees World Series rings and vintage Mercedes are all on the line.
While the court papers, filed by Caruso, don’t specify the reason the legal duo wants off the case, they do generally list part of the law allowing attorneys to withdraw because of a “fundamental disagreement” or when a client “insists on presenting a claim or defense that is not warranted under existing law.”
Judge Lewis Liman must sign off on the request before it becomes official.
The case was brought by Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, as they go after Giuliani’s assets to collect on the whopping judgment they won last year. A jury determined Giuliani defamed them when he falsely claimed the pair tried to cheat Donald Trump out of a 2020 presidential election victory — which was actually won by Joe Biden.
During a hearing last week in the case, Liman ripped Giuliani — the 80-year-old disbarred lawyer and pol once fondly known as “America’s Mayor” — for trying to get out of disclosing the names of the people who know where his assets are.
“The notion that your client doesn’t have any notion of where his assets are is farcical,” Liman said, noting he’d make Giuliani testify on the stand if necessary to get him to answer “truthfully and fully.”
Freeman and Moss saying Giuliani should be forced to turn over his Upper East Side apartment, an extensive watch collection, Yankees memorabilia, a 1980 blue convertible Model SL500 Mercedes — once owned by Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall — and other possessions.
Meanwhile, Giuliani has been crying poverty in the case, even going as far as to restart a GoFundMe, claiming he can’t even afford to buy food because of the litigation.
In addition to civil cases against Giuliani, he also faces two criminal cases in Arizona and Georgia for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election result in both states. He’s pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Georgia criminal case also charges Trump and a slew of the former president’s associates with a widespread scheme to interfere in the Peach State’s presidential election result four years ago.
The Georgia case has been halted by a scandal over Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willi’s admitted relationship with since-ousted Trump prosecutor Nathan Wade. An appeal over her involvement in the case is currently pending.
“Mayor Giuliani has not been informed by Mr. Caruso of this action,” Giuliani’s advisor Ted Goodman said in a statement to The Post. “Surely Mr. Caruso would talk to the mayor, or at the very least inform him of such a decision.”
Caruso’s court papers indicate the lawyer emailed Giuliani a copy of his filing seeking to leave the case.
