SCOFFLAW: Giuliani still not complying with judge’s orders in defamation case
After being sanctioned for failing to comply with court-ordered discovery, Rudy Giuliani has also failed to comply with the sanction order, according to a new filing.
Giuliani seems to be testing Judge Beryl Howell’s patience in the defamation case brought by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
After the judge, in a previous order, took Giuliani to task for failing to comply with discovery orders, and ordered him to pay attorneys fees for the plaintiffs, he’s now also failed to comply with the subsequent order.
In a new filing, Moss and Freeman say that the former NYC mayor has neglected to meet the September 20th deadline for not only returning the requested documents but for paying up in the amount of just over $89k.
This comes on the same day that Judge Howell set a schedule for the case to go to a jury to decide what damages Giuliani will owe for defaming the pair.
Now Judge Howell is in the position of deciding how to handle Giuliani’s continued refusal to comply with her orders and could decide to hold him in contempt.
The plaintiffs are not yet requesting any additional action, but say that they are determining whether any is needed, and will file any further request by September 29th.
Aside from the financial reimbursement for attorney fees, the request includes:
“To ensure that Giuliani Communications LLC and Giuliani Partners LLC (collectively, the “Giuliani Businesses”) produce complete responses to plaintiffs’ requests for financial documents and viewership metrics…and designate one or more corporate representatives to sit for depositions on behalf of the Giuliani Businesses.”
This information could be important to a jury in determining how far Giuliani spread the false claims he made about the two election workers when he spoke about them on his podcast, and in determining the amount of profit he may have made from spreading election conspiracy theories.
Judge Howell has already opined that Giuliani may be withholding discovery to protect himself in other legal matters, including both civil and criminal cases and ongoing investigations, and warned that none of that excuses him from complying with orders in this case.
