Dem
51
GOP
49
Some people just don't learn. After a jury ordered Donald Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll $5 million for defaming her, what did he do? He defamed her again and she added his latest comments to her pending lawsuit. In January, a jury is likely to really stick it to him, especially after the $148 million award to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss as a result of Rudy Giuliani lying about them and destroying their lives.
So, what did Giuliani do after HIS decision was announced? Say he was sorry he ruined the two women's lives? Nope, he channeled his master and defamed them again. So the two women sued Giuliani again. As we note above, some people never learn.
In Giuliani's case, it doesn't really matter. He doesn't have $148 million, and after Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic are through with him, he won't have anything. Suppose the two Georgia women get an award of another $148 million, it doesn't make a lot of difference financially, although seeing him smacked down again will surely be emotionally satisfying.
With Trump, it is actually different. He could just have paid the $5 million to Carroll and moved on. Now with the $148 million Georgia decision in the news, the jury could realistically hit Trump with, say, a $150 million award. He has that kind of money and because some of it is tied up in very visible real estate, it could be seized and auctioned off. For Giuliani, an award of $296 million is no different than an award of $148 million, but for Trump $155 million is hugely different than $5 million.
Minutes after filing the second defamation suit, Michael Gottlieb, Moss and Freeman's lawyer, asked the judge to allow the plaintiffs to start collecting now, before Giuliani empties his bank accounts and hides the money. Normally, there is a 30-day grace period before collection starts, but judges can choose to end it earlier if they think the defendant is going to hide assets. And, in this case, the judge agreed to do just that. In her opinion yesterday, Judge Beryl Howell ruled that Giuliani's claims of poverty are "difficult to square with the fact that Giuliani affords a spokesperson, who accompanied him daily to trial." So now Moss and Freeman's team are already busy trying to uncover Giuliani's assets before he can hide them.
Fortunately for Freeman and Moss, some of Giuliani's assets will be hard to hide. He has an apartment on 66th St. in Manhattan he is trying to sell. Giuliani also owns a condo in Florida and has numerous bank accounts at New York banks. He can wire all the money from those accounts to a bank in Panama or the Cayman Islands, but banks keep records of that sort of thing and a judge could order him to wire the money back and conceivably find him in contempt of court if he refuses. (V)