Politics

Judge threatens to hold Giuliani in contempt if he doesn’t hand over assets to Freeman and Moss

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Judge threatens to hold Giuliani in contempt if he doesn’t hand over assets to Freeman and Moss

A federal judge threatened to hold disgraced lawyer Rudy Giuliani in contempt if he does not turn over his assets to the former Georgia election workers he defamed, rejecting Giuliani’s claim that he does not know where his assets are.

“The notion that your client doesn’t know where his assets are is farcical,” a frustrated Judge Lewis Liman told Giuliani’s attorney, Kenneth Caruso, in a court hearing in Manhattan on Thursday.

Liman gave Giuliani until Monday, Nov. 11, to turn over his assets to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who have been waiting for nearly a year to collect on the $148 million in damages he owes them for defamation. If Giuliani does not do so by the deadline, Liman said, “I will hold him in contempt.”

Rudy Giuliani arrives at federal court in New York City on Thursday.Yuki Iwamura / AP

Freeman and Moss had been unable to collect on the sum for months due to proceedings in Giuliani’s bankruptcy case, which he filed for shortly after the judgment was handed down in December 2023. (He is appealing the verdict in a federal court in Washington, D.C.) Giuliani’s bankruptcy case was dismissed in July, and Liman later ordered him to turn over his assets to Freeman and Moss.

However, last week, when representatives for the women finally gained access to Giuliani’s New York City penthouse, they found that almost all of his property had been removed from the apartment, Aaron Nathan, an attorney for the women, said in a court filing. Nathan also said that Giuliani had yet to transfer any property to the women, and accused him and his lawyer of stonewalling on the whereabouts of his assets. Giuliani was also seen outside a polling place in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday, in a Mercedez-Benz that was meant to be turned over to Freeman and Moss.

Giuliani had employed similar delay tactics in his bankruptcy proceedings, too. His creditors accused him of failing to submit timely and complete filings, and of hiding his assets and entering business deals in which money is paid to his businesses instead of his estate.

Outside the courthouse after the hearing on Thursday, Giuliani went on a tirade against the large judgment sum. He denied defaming Freeman and Moss and repeated the false claim that the 2020 election was “fixed.” He alleged without evidence that his defamation case was “political persecution” by President Joe Biden.

Giuliani also said he would join Trump’s second administration if the president-elect wanted him to.

“I’m not offering myself for anything, but I would, you know,” he told reporters. “I’m very dedicated to him.”

Clarissa-Jan Lim

Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for BLN Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

8 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”