Giuliani gets to keep property, agrees to stop defaming Georgia election workers

NEW YORK CITY — Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who served as Donald Trump's personal lawyer, agreed to stop defaming two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of helping steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden as part of a legal settlement on Thursday.

In a statement read by his lawyer, Giuliani said the settlement lets him keep his Palm Beach, Florida, condominium as well as his apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Additional settlement terms were not immediately available.

"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," Giuliani said in the statement read by his lawyer Joseph Cammarata to reporters outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan.

The election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Moss, said they had also been compensated as part of the settlement, though they did not specify how much.

"We can now move forward with our lives," they said in a statement. "We have agreed to allow Mr. Giuliani to retain his property in exchange for compensation and his promise not to ever defame us."

The settlement means Giuliani will no longer face a non-jury civil trial, which had been due to begin on Thursday before U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman, over whether he must turn over his real estate to Freeman and Moss.

Liman was to decide whether Freeman and Moss could seize Giuliani's Palm Beach condo and his three New York Yankees World Series baseball rings.

Those assets would have helped pay off a $148 million judgment the election workers won after a judge ruled that Giuliani defamed them.

Giuliani has twice been held in contempt of court over his treatment of the workers.

He has already turned over other assets, including a 1980 Mercedes-Benz, to help pay off the $148 million judgment.

Giuliani had argued he should have been allowed to keep the condominium because it was his permanent residence, and could not give up the rings because he gave them as gifts to his son Andrew Giuliani.

Andrew Giuliani told reporters he would be able to keep the rings.

The trial was to have been held in the same district where the now-disbarred Rudy Giuliani served as the top federal prosecutor from 1983 to 1989.

Once praised for his response as mayor to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Giuliani's reputation has fallen.

Giuliani has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in two states for trying to overturn Biden's 2020 victory over Trump.

On Jan. 6, Liman held Giuliani in contempt for failing to comply with court orders and obstructing efforts by Freeman and Moss to determine his primary residence. Four days later, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington found him in contempt again for continuing to defame the two women.

In a 2021 lawsuit in Washington, Freeman and Moss accused Giuliani of harming their reputations by falsely claiming surveillance video showed them concealing and counting suitcases filled with illegal ballots at an Atlanta basketball arena where election votes were processed.

Howell found Giuliani liable for defamation as a sanction after he failed to turn over electronic records to Freeman and Moss.

Jurors in Washington later found that he must pay Freeman and Moss $73 million in compensation and $75 million as punishment.

The women were trying to enforce the judgment in Manhattan while Giuliani appeals.

Giuliani previously conceded that his statements about Moss and Freeman were false and damaged their reputations. But Giuliani opposed Howell's contempt citation, saying he did not mention Freeman and Moss by name in a November podcast in which he claimed a video showed them "quadruple counting the ballots."

His lawyers have also challenged the New York contempt finding, saying Giuliani intended to provide the information that Freeman and Moss sought but the timeline was too tight.

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