Rudolph W. Giuliani’s lawyers asked a federal judge on Wednesday for permission to withdraw as his counsel, citing unspecified professional ethics issues related to Mr. Giuliani’s turning over assets to two women he defamed in 2020.
The former New York City mayor was serving as President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer in 2020 and helping to lead the effort to overturn the presidential election results when he spread lies about two former Georgia election workers who later sued him for defamation and won a $148 million judgment.
A federal judge in Manhattan ordered Mr. Giuliani to turn over certain assets, including valuable sports memorabilia, to the women, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, last month. But Mr. Giuliani missed the deadline. Judge Lewis J. Liman of Federal District Court in Manhattan had set a new deadline of Friday for Mr. Giuliani to hand over the assets.
Earlier this month, the women’s lawyers were surprised to learn that Mr. Giuliani had moved most of his possessions to a storage facility two hours from Manhattan. It was not clear whether Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers knew about the move.
A spokesman for Mr. Giuliani could not immediately be reached for comment.
While his lawyers, Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski, filed requests with the court on Wednesday to withdraw as his counsel in these proceedings, their reasons for doing so were redacted. They cited a professional ethics rule that stated lawyers could drop a client for a variety of reasons, including that the client was doing something his lawyer did not agree with. This step is also justified if the client makes it “unreasonably difficult” for his lawyers to do their jobs.
Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss sued Mr. Giuliani for defamation in December 2021. Mr. Giuliani refused to cooperate with court filings throughout that case as well as during his time in bankruptcy court. At one point, the judge overseeing the trial in the District of Columbia to determine the judgment amount in the defamation case announced to the courtroom that Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer “has a hard job.”
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