Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is set to be the first witness at a trial over whether he can keep his Florida home and three World Series rings
The judge will determine whether or not he must turn them over to meet a 148 million dollar (£121 million) defamation judgment awarded to two Georgia election workers.
The trial, heard without a jury, begins on Thursday at a federal court in Manhattan.
Giuliani, 80, will testify before the same judge who last week found him in contempt for failing to turn over information on some of his assets to lawyers for the women.
Rudy Giuliani speaks outside the Fulton County jail in Atlanta (AP/Brynn Anderson, File)
Judge Lewis J Liman banned Giuliani from introducing some evidence.
Giuliani, who served for a time as personal attorney to President-elect Donald Trump during his first term, was also found in contempt last week in Washington DC.
The judge there found Giuliani had continued to slander the election workers by repeating false claims they counted votes corruptly in the 2020 presidential contest.
The latest proceeding will not be to relitigate whether Giuliani defamed the women or the amount of the judgment against him, but rather to determine whether he will get to keep certain valuable assets instead of turning them over.
Among them is his condominium in Palm Beach, Florida, which he can hang onto if he can prove it is his home.
The former mayor says he established residence there in January 2024, but lawyers for the election workers say he continued to operate as if his New York apartment was his residence until it was surrendered in the autumn as part of the judgement.
Also at stake are three World Series rings that Giuliani says he gave to his son Andrew in 2018.
At a recent hearing, Giuliani said he is “not impoverished” but does not have access to most of his remaining assets.
“Everything I have is tied up. I don’t have a car. I don’t have a credit card. I don’t have cash. I can’t get to bank accounts that truly would be mine because they have put… stop orders on, for example, my Social Security account, which they have no right to do,” he said.
Lawyers for the election workers say Giuliani listed the Manhattan apartment as his residence and the rings as his property when he filed for bankruptcy in December 2023, an application that was dismissed six months later by a judge who accused him of “uncooperative conduct,” self-dealing and a lack of transparency.
Giuliani said during a deposition last month that George Steinbrenner, the late New York Yankees owner, gave him the rings in 2002, although he insisted on paying for them and told Mr Steinbrenner: “These are for Andrew.”
He testified that he gave one to Andrew immediately and kept three others for safekeeping.
He estimated their total worth at 27,000 dollars (£22,114).
Lawyers for the election workers say Giuliani, a lifelong Yankees fan who wore the rings sometimes, never listed them as a gift to his son in tax records even though he was meticulous about listing gifts when he reported taxes.
And they say the son never obtained insurance for the rings or reported them in his tax records.
Giuliani’s total assets are not expected to amount to much more than 10 million dollars (£8.19 million)
The election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, won the defamation judgment after saying Giuliani’s lies about the 2020 presidential election being stolen led to death threats that made them fear for their lives.