Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani appears likely to lose two of his lawyers.
Giuliani, former attorney to President-elect Donald Trump, was ordered to pay more than $148 million in December after losing a defamation lawsuit leveled by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, Georgia poll workers who Giuliani falsely claimed helped President Joe Biden “steal” the 2020 presidential election from Trump.
Lawyers Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski have been representing Giuliani in the case, which has recently seen the former mayor failing to meet court-ordered deadlines to turn over his assets to pay the judgment. Caruso filed a motion on behalf of himself and Labkowski in federal court to withdraw from the case on Wednesday.
In the motion, Caruso cited a New York rule allowing lawyers to withdraw from cases if they have “a fundamental disagreement” with their client, are faced with a client who “insists upon presenting a claim or defense that is not warranted under existing law and cannot be supported by good faith argument” or “fails to cooperate” and makes representation “unreasonably difficult.”
U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman, who is presiding over the case, has not yet ruled on the withdrawal motion. It is not clear who might represent Giuliani if the motion is granted. Giuliani lost his own New York law license in 2021 and was disbarred in July for repeatedly pushing false claims about the 2020 election.
Newsweek reached out for comment to a representative for Giuliani via email on Wednesday night.
Hours before Caruso filed the motion to withdraw, a lawyer representing Freeman and Moss, who are mother and daughter, urged Liman to grant access to a storage facility that Giuliani and his associates allegedly used to hide assets taken from his New York City apartment despite being under an order to relinquish the assets.
“Mr. Giuliani and his associates did move a substantial amount of his property out of the New York Apartment while the motion for turnover was pending, without informing Plaintiffs and possibly without informing his own counsel,” lawyer Aaron E. Nathan wrote in a letter to Liman.
Caruso last week indicated in a letter to Liman that Giuliani was still holding on to his Mercedes and luxury watches despite being ordered to hand them over. Giuliani claimed this week that he “can’t buy food” after a checking account was seized, although a conservative crowdfunding page has amassed well over $100,000 for him.
Legal analyst Glenn Kirschner suggested in a video shared to YouTube on Saturday that Giuliani would soon be held in contempt for refusing to cooperate with the court orders and was “about to find himself” in jail as a result.
While Trump and Giuliani remain close allies, the president-elect will likely be powerless to provide any relief to his former lawyer when he returns to the White House on January 20, as civil judgments are not subject to presidential pardon power.
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