NEW YORK – 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 preventing to maintain one gleaming set of sports activities memorabilia within the household: Yankees World Sequence rings bestowed to him by the group’s late proprietor, George Steinbrenner.
A lifelong Bronx Bombers fan, Giuliani contends that the rings — bejeweled behemoths commemorating the group’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, ahead of a pair of key court dates, Giuliani described the 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 World Sequence rings as one thing of a household heirloom and Yankees good-luck allure.
He recounted how he and Andrew would every put one on for “a particular Yankee event,” just like the group’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 advised the proprietor, “These are for Andrew.” He stated he then invited his son — a teen on the time — to take one for himself whereas he held the others for safekeeping.
Realizing he wasn’t sporting them as a lot because the Yankees’ fortunes ebbed, Giuliani testified, he determined to offer the remainder to Andrew at a celebration in 2018. He estimated that the rings, the identical because the gamers acquired, had been price about $27,000.
“They’re now yours,” Giuliani recalled saying. “These are your rings. I don’t know what I’m preserving them for. They belong to you.”
The ex-mayor took his swings at a Dec. 27 deposition, every week earlier than the beginning of a courtroom doubleheader in a tug-of-war over assets sought by the 2 former Georgia election staff 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 court docket docket on Monday.
Up first is Giuliani’s contempt hearing in Manhattan federal court docket Friday over what legal professionals for the Georgia girls say was his failure to show over property in a well timed style, comparable to his New York Metropolis condominium lease.
Then, on Jan. 16, Decide Lewis J. Liman will hold a trial to determine what occurs not solely to Giuliani’s World Sequence rings but additionally his condominium in Palm Seaside, Florida. Giuliani claims the condominium, estimated to be price greater than $3 million, is his major residence and ought to be exempt.
For Giuliani, once 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.
Legal professionals for the previous election staff, mom and daughter Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, argue that Giuliani has engaged in a “constant sample of willful defiance” of court docket orders to show over gadgets.
In a Monday submitting, lawyer Aaron Nathan stated 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 automobile’s title.
After itemizing 26 watches in a bankruptcy filing, Giuliani now claims with out clarification 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.
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, said they belong to him.
Giuliani’s eight hours of deposition testimony provided a vivid portrait of a still-proud, combative and downtrodden man who has misplaced nearly every thing 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 want to be part of, besides for 2.
Questioned by Nathan, he spoke at size concerning the rings, his ties to Trump and the Yankees, and his dismay over his once-beloved Massive Apple’s liberal politics — an element he stated drove him to relocate to Florida and register to vote there final Might.
“Frankly, I wished my vote to depend,” Giuliani testified.
Requested why it was essential to him to forged a vote for president, Giuliani replied: “As a result of I’m a really, very robust supporter of Donald Trump, which is the rationale why you might be 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, usually cheered the group as mayor, usually sitting subsequent to the dugout.
“I used to be a really ardent Yankee fan,” he testified. “Once I was the mayor, I used to be described as New York’s No. 1 Yankee fan.”
After the group 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 assume it was acceptable {that a} mayor get a hoop,” Giuliani testified.
By the point he left workplace in 2002, the Yankees had three extra championships.
At spring coaching that 12 months in Tampa, Florida, Steinbrenner offered him with a plaque and three World Sequence rings, Giuliani testified, every engraved together with his title.
“I used to be very touched and moved by that,” he stated.
The Yankees additionally gave him the 1996 ring that he turned down, he stated. 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 loopy sporting it.”
Giuliani lamented that his rings didn’t deliver the Yankees extra success, noting their 2003 World Series loss to the Marlins and 2004 playoff collapse towards the hated Pink Sox.
“I ended sporting them after the Yankees stopped profitable as a result of it was not working,” he stated. “After which I wasn’t utilizing them anymore.”
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