Rudy Giuliani has zero f**ks to give. At least that’s the way it looks, based on the lack of respect he has shown to the law — a profession that gave him his start (before it was all yanked away when he decided, in an allegedly drunken stupor, that Donald Trump should just declare victory when he lost the 2020 presidential election).
While Giuliani spent months playing hard-to-get with Georgia lawmakers, who ultimately compelled him to testify before them about his meddling in the 2020 presidential election, another legal drama has been playing out for the former New York City mayor: he has been ordered to pay $262,000 to his ex-wife (one of the two who isn’t his cousin) and warned that he could be spending time in the slammer if he didn’t pay up. Which didn’t seem to faze Rudy much.
On Friday, Rudy finally showed up in court to face the charges of this missing alimony — a month late. As the New York Post reported, Giuliani, who was originally ordered to appear before the court a month ago, got an earful from Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Katz. As usual, Rudy was full of excuses — most of them pretty pathetic.
“Let me apologize for not appearing,” Giuliani said about the missed appearance. “It was very stupid,” he admitted. “I made a mistake.”
As far as exactly what that mistake was, well, the scofflaw proffered up a litany of dumb defenses. Including that he simply wrote down the incorrect date, which didn’t exactly fly with the judge.
Katz not-so-gently reminded the man formerly known as America’s Mayor that he had “repeated the date [back] to me” at a previous hearing. “I said everyone needed to be here on the 23rd and you repeated it to me,” Katz said. “I don’t understand your excuse.”
“I put it down the wrong way when I left the courthouse,” Rudy replied, making his response even more confusing.
Still, Giuliani did manage to hand over copies of two checks that he claims clear him of any monies owed to his ex-wife, who says he is $260,000 in arrears for monies owed for their agreed upon alimony, condo payments, and the ever-important country club fees. But Katz was still confused.
“I don’t understand why it takes two months to get checks from Citibank,” the judge said. “I can get my bank records by entering a passcode on the computer. I don’t understand why there is such a delay.”
While Katz had initially warned Giuliani that there was a sheriff ready to “come at a moment’s notice today” to arrest him, he eventually called off the dogs and set a new court date in order to allow both sides time to review the new evidence.
After the hearing, the New York Post caught up with Giuliani, who claimed it “went very well.”
“The judge lifted the mistaken [contempt] order which was based on false statements by her,” Rudy said, claiming “it’s not true that I owed $200,000 or $300,000. At the very most, it’s probably closer to $20,000 — if it is that.”
“It’s possible I’ve overpaid her,” he finally decided.
(Via New York Post)