Rudy Giuliani resumes testimony at contempt-of-court hearing in defamation case

Donald Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani was answering more questions in court Monday after facing a grilling last week at a contempt-of-court hearing stemming from his failure to surrender valuable items to satisfy a $146 million defamation judgment against him.

Unlike at Friday’s hearing, Giuliani is testifying remotely and responding to questions posed by his attorney, instead of lawyers for the two former Georgia election workers he was found liable of defaming: Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss.

Giuliani told his lawyer Joseph Cammarata that he had tried to comply with court orders in the case, and blamed earlier failures to do so on his previous attorney. He also complained that he’s had difficulty juggling his various court cases, including two criminal cases and two other defamation suits related to his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“Some days it is completely impossible because there are conflicting demands for material and appearances on the same day,” Giuliani said.

He also said he had located some key documents that Freeman and Moss had been waiting for — the lease for his multi-million dollar Manhattan apartment and the title for his Mercedes-Benz convertible.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman is weighing whether Giuliani should be held in contempt for defying court orders to surrender valuable items, including a New York Yankees jersey autographed by Hall of Fame outfielder Joe DiMaggio.

Freeman and Moss have asked the judge to find Giuliani in civil contempt for failing to hand over the jersey and other items intended to supplement their $146 million judgment against him.

The pair was awarded the sum in their defamation lawsuit against Giuliani, who they said had spread falsities about Trump’s election loss in 2020 resulting in an onslaught of racist and violent threats against them.

Their attorneys had urged the judge in a court filing to apply “appropriate sanctions” to prompt Giuliani’s compliance with court orders after he repeatedly ran afoul of deadlines to turn over assets and financial data.

Giuliani said Friday that the DiMaggio jersey was “missing,” and denied an assertion made by his friend Monsignor Alan Placa that he had seen it framed in Giuliani’s property in Palm Peach, Florida, within the past two years.

On Monday, Giuliani said he’s still searching for the jersey. “I don’t know where it is, and it is hard to recreate who took it, and I am personally conducting my own investigation about this,” he said.

Giuliani on Friday also denied withholding other Yankees memorabilia, saying he wasn’t “hiding” a signed image of Reggie Jackson, another Hall of Famer, that the election workers’ attorney said was listed as an asset in a bankruptcy document.

Lawyers for Freeman and Moss have argued that Giuliani has demonstrated “a consistent pattern of willful defiance of the Court’s Turnover Orders,” and cited his failure to surrender the proprietary lease and co-op shares to the estimated $6 million Manhattan apartment, cash in his bank account and the title document for his Mercedes, which used to belong to Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall.

Giuliani is also facing a second contempt proceeding in Washington, D.C., this week over whether he should face sanctions for continuing to defame Freeman and Moss on his livestreamed “America’s Mayor Live” show, in defiance of a court-ordered agreement.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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