By Katelyn Polantz | CNN
(CNN) — Rudy Giuliani must appear in person in federal court on Thursday after two election workers who are to receive nearly all of his most valuable assets told a judge they believe the former Donald Trump attorney is hiding items from them.
The complaint from the election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss – whom Giuliani owes nearly $150 million for defaming them after the 2020 election – comes after lawyers for the mother and daughter visited Giuliani’s $6 million Manhattan apartment and discovered much of the furniture and valuable sports memorabilia was recently removed.
“Save for some rugs, a dining room table, some stray pieces of small furniture and inexpensive wall art, and a handful of smaller items like dishes and stereo equipment, the Apartment has been emptied of all of its contents,” Freeman and Moss’ attorney Aaron Nathan wrote in a letter to the judge in the case.
They are also trying to take possession, at the court’s direction, of Giuliani’s 26 luxury watches and a 1980 Mercedes-Benz he kept in Florida. But those also haven’t been handed over, court filings this week say.
Nathan said Giuliani and his lawyers’ approach to the bankruptcy proceedings is one of “evasion and silence.”
Freeman and Moss’ lawyers had gone to the apartment last week to figure out how best to move the luxury items inside that should now be theirs, per the judge’s order, into storage.
But the apartment was “substantially empty,” Nathan wrote. The expensive furniture Giuliani had used in real estate photos of the property earlier this year was moved out four weeks ago, he said.
Judge Lewis Liman ordered Giuliani to come to court later this week.
Giuliani’s lawyer told the court on Tuesday the former mayor of New York can’t come to the federal courthouse in Manhattan on Thursday because Giuliani has to do a live radio show from his condo in Palm Beach that night.
“We note that broadcasts, such as those described above, currently provide Mr. Giuliani’s only source of earned income,” Giuliani’s attorney, Kenneth Caruso, told the court. “We respectfully suggest that a loss of income, and an expense for travel to New York, should be avoided, if possible.”
The judge rejected the request.
Giuliani’s radio broadcast is for a media platform started by right-wing “MyPillow” CEO Mike Lindell. The show took him to the Republican National Convention this summer, and Giuliani since then has made appearances advocating for Trump in the election, including at the former president’s recent Madison Square Garden rally.
Giuliani was still being driven around in the Mercedes on Tuesday, even as he went to vote in Florida, according to multiple photos taken by news outlets who found the former mayor at his Palm Beach polling location. The classic car, a blue-gray convertible, was once owned by Hollywood star Lauren Bacall, and Giuliani in the photos sits in the passenger’s seat, leaning far back, wearing an American flag t-shirt and a Fire Department of New York baseball cap.
When asked about him using the car a week after he was due to transfer it to Moss and Freeman under a court’s order, Giuliani’s spokesman Ted Goodman told CNN that Giuliani’s lawyers had requested documentation to transfer the title of the vehicle.
Moss and Freeman’s team have already complained to the judge about Giuliani using the car on Tuesday, submitting to the court the photos.
Separately, Giuliani’s lawyers say the property that was in the Manhattan apartment is now in a storage facility on Long Island, but Freeman and Moss’ team say they are struggling to get access to the items there, too.
The women are also still in court trying to convince the judge they should be able to take control of a $3.5 million Palm Beach condo where Giuliani says he now lives and four Yankees World Series rings from the 1990s and 2000 championships, which Giuliani’s son says he received as a gift from his father.
This story has been updated with additional details.
