Ruth. Gehrig. DiMaggio. Mantle. Giuliani?
As Rudy Giuliani’s life will get stripped for components to fulfill a $148 million defamation verdict, the previous New York Metropolis mayor is combating to maintain one gleaming set of sports activities memorabilia within the household: Yankees World Sequence rings bestowed to him by the workforce’s late proprietor, George Steinbrenner.
A lifelong Bronx Bombers fan, Giuliani contends that the rings — bejeweled behemoths commemorating the workforce’s 4 championships in 5 years whereas he was mayor — now belong to his son, Andrew, and shouldn’t be given up.
In sworn testimony made public this week, forward of a pair of key courtroom dates, Giuliani described the 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 World Sequence rings as one thing of a household heirloom and Yankees good-luck appeal.
He recounted how he and Andrew would every put one on for “a special Yankee occasion,” just like the workforce’s final World Sequence win in 2009.
Giuliani testified that when Steinbrenner gave him the rings in 2002, he insisted on paying for them and informed the proprietor, “These are for Andrew.” He mentioned he then invited his son — an adolescent on the time — to take one for himself whereas he held the others for safekeeping.
Realizing he wasn’t carrying them as a lot because the Yankees’ fortunes ebbed, Giuliani testified, he determined to provide the remaining to Andrew at a birthday celebration in 2018. He estimated that the rings, the identical because the gamers obtained, have been price about $27,000.
“They are now yours,” Giuliani recalled saying. “These are your rings. I don’t know what I’m keeping them for. They belong to you.”
The ex-mayor took his swings at a Dec. 27 deposition, per week earlier than the beginning of a courtroom doubleheader in a tug-of-war over belongings sought by the 2 former Georgia election employees who sued him over his lies about them within the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss. A transcript was posted to the courtroom docket on Monday.
Up first is Giuliani’s contempt listening to in Manhattan federal courtroom Friday over what legal professionals for the Georgia girls say was his failure to show over property in a well timed vogue, resembling his New York Metropolis condo lease.
Then, on Jan. 16, Decide Lewis J. Liman will maintain a trial to determine what occurs not solely to Giuliani’s World Sequence rings but additionally his condominium in Palm Seashore, Florida. Giuliani claims the apartment, estimated to be price greater than $3 million, is his major residence and ought to be exempt.
For Giuliani, as soon as heralded as “America’s Mayor” for his post-9/11 management, it’s the authorized equal of two strikes, two out within the backside of the ninth.
Attorneys for the previous election employees, mom and daughter Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, argue that Giuliani has engaged in a “consistent pattern of willful defiance” of courtroom orders to show over objects.
In a Monday submitting, lawyer Aaron Nathan mentioned Giuliani’s compliance has been spotty, noting that whereas he lastly surrendered a Mercedes earlier owned by actor Lauren Bacall, he failed to supply the car’s title.
After itemizing 26 watches in a chapter submitting, Giuliani now claims with out rationalization that 18 watches he turned over to Freeman and Moss are all he has, Nathan wrote. He added that Giuliani additionally claims to not know the whereabouts of a shirt signed by Joe DiMaggio or a photograph signed by Reggie Jackson, each Yankees legends.
After a choose on Tuesday mentioned Rudy Giuliani was not complying with courtroom orders to give up his belongings to the 2 Georgia election employees he falsely accused of election fraud throughout the 2020 election, former New York Metropolis Mayor mentioned that he’s struggling to make ends meet.
Freeman and Moss requested the choose in August to award them the World Sequence rings, however the choose demurred and scheduled a trial after Andrew Giuliani, now 38, mentioned they belong to him.
Giuliani’s eight hours of deposition testimony supplied a vivid portrait of a still-proud, combative and downtrodden man who has misplaced virtually all the pieces and stays satisfied that it has been unjustly taken.
Recalling his days as a two-term Republican mayor, he boasted that he “cured” homelessness within the metropolis whereas acknowledging that he’s now rejected by most golf equipment he wish to be part of, besides for 2.
Questioned by Nathan, he spoke at size in regards to the rings, his ties to Trump and the Yankees, and his dismay over his once-beloved Large Apple’s liberal politics — an element he mentioned drove him to relocate to Florida and register to vote there final Might.
“Frankly, I wanted my vote to count,” Giuliani testified.
Requested why it was necessary to him to forged a vote for president, Giuliani replied: “Because I am a very, very strong supporter of Donald Trump, which is the reason why you are doing all of this to me.”
Earlier than Trump, it was the Yankees. Giuliani, who noticed them win 10 titles throughout his childhood and faculty years, frequently cheered the workforce as mayor, usually sitting subsequent to the dugout.
“I was a very ardent Yankee fan,” he testified. “When I was the mayor, I was described as New York’s No. 1 Yankee fan.”
After the workforce triumphed in 1996 to snap a 15-year drought, Steinbrenner thought “New York’s No. 1 Yankee fan” deserved a World Sequence ring — however Giuliani wasn’t having it.
“I didn’t think it was appropriate that a mayor get a ring,” Giuliani testified.
By the point he left workplace in 2002, the Yankees had three extra championships.
At spring coaching that yr in Tampa, Florida, Steinbrenner offered him with a plaque and three World Sequence rings, Giuliani testified, every engraved along with his identify.
“I was very touched and moved by that,” he mentioned.
The Yankees additionally gave him the 1996 ring that he turned down, he mentioned. He recalled exhibiting all 4 rings to his son and telling him: “These are going to be yours.”
Every ring was greater and extra extravagant than the final, Giuliani testified, a lot in order that “you’d look crazy wearing it.”
Giuliani lamented that his rings didn’t convey the Yankees extra success, noting their 2003 World Sequence loss to the Marlins and 2004 playoff collapse in opposition to the hated Purple Sox.
“I stopped wearing them after the Yankees stopped winning because it was no longer working,” he mentioned. “And then I wasn’t using them anymore.”
