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Rudy Giuliani shows up to vote in the Mercedes he was ordered to surrender

M.Cooper33 min ago

Rudy Giuliani has yet to surrender any of the valuables he was ordered to turn over to the two election workers he defamed, their lawyers say — including the Mercedes he was spotted riding around in Tuesday in Palm Beach, Florida.

The former Trump lawyer was photographed in the convertible 1980 Mercedes-Benz SL500 outside the polling place where former President Donald Trump voted.

The car — which used to belong to Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall — was among the items a federal judge ordered Giuliani to turn over to Ruby Freeman and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss last month to begin paying the $146 million judgment he owes them.

The Oct. 22 ruling by U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman gave Giuliani one week to transfer personal property "including cash accounts, jewelry and valuables, a legal claim for unpaid attorneys' fees, and his interest in his Madison Avenue co-op apartment to a receivership."

In a court filing Monday, Aaron Nathan, an attorney for Freeman and Moss, said that Giuliani "has yet to transfer any property into the Receivers' custody," and that he and his lawyer "have refused or been unable to answer basic questions about the location of most of the property subject to the receivership." That includes some of Giuliani's prized Yankees memorabilia, including a signed Joe DiMaggio jersey and an autographed Reggie Jackson picture.

Nathan added that representatives for Freeman and Moss "were finally granted access" to Giuliani's New York apartment on Halloween, only to discover that he "had moved virtually all of its contents out approximately four weeks ago — something that neither Defendant nor Defendant's counsel had bothered to mention."

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They said they were told that the car was in Florida but not where it was garaged, and that Giuliani's collection of luxury watches was in Florida, too, but not which ones. He also has yet to turn over any cash from his bank accounts or the co-op shares and proprietary lease for the apartment.

Citing Nathan's allegations, Liman on Tuesday ordered Giuliani to appear before him in New York on Thursday, and rejected a request from Giuliani's lawyer that the hearing be held remotely or in-person next week.

A spokesman for Giuliani, Ted Goodman, said, "Our lawyers have requested documentation to transfer over the title of the vehicle, and haven't heard back from opposing counsel."

He also said that Freeman and Moss were trying to leave the former New York City mayor "penniless and homeless," and that Giuliani wasn't being evasive.

"Mayor Giuliani has made available his property and possessions as ordered. A few items were put into storage over the course of the past year, and anything else removed was related to his two livestream programs," Goodman said.

Freeman and Moss filed their enforcement action in August after another judge dismissed Giuliani's bankruptcy case in part because of his failure to turn over information about his businesses while submitting incomplete or incorrect information about his personal spending.

Giuliani had filed for bankruptcy shortly after a jury hit him with a massive verdict for his repeated false claims about Freeman and Moss, lies that subjected them to racist death threats and forced them out of their jobs.

The judge in that case had found Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, liable for defamation after he ignored her orders to turn over required information to Freeman and Moss.

Giuliani first made the claims about the mother and daughter while he was leading then-President Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He's since been stripped of his law licenses in New York and Washington, D.C., and been charged in criminal election interference cases in Arizona and Georgia. He has pleaded not guilty in both.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com . More from NBC News:

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