NEW YORK — Ruth. Gehrig. DiMaggio. Mantle. Giuliani?<\/p>\n
As Rudy Giuliani\u2019s life gets stripped for parts to satisfy a $148 million defamation verdict, the former New York City mayor is fighting to keep one gleaming set of sports memorabilia in the family: Yankees World Series rings bestowed to him by the team\u2019s late owner, George Steinbrenner.<\/p>\n
A lifelong Bronx Bombers fan, Giuliani contends that the rings \u2014 bejeweled behemoths commemorating the team\u2019s four championships in five years while he was mayor \u2014 now belong to his son, Andrew, and shouldn\u2019t be given up.<\/p>\n
In sworn testimony made public this week, ahead of a pair of key court dates, Giuliani described the 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 World Series rings as something of a family heirloom and Yankees good-luck charm.<\/p>\n
He recounted how he and Andrew would each put one on for \u201ca special Yankee occasion,\u201d like the team\u2019s last World Series win in 2009.<\/p>\n
Giuliani testified that when Steinbrenner gave him the rings in 2002, he insisted on paying for them and told the owner, \u201cThese are for Andrew.\u201d He said he then invited his son \u2014 a teenager at the time \u2014 to take one for himself while he held the others for safekeeping.<\/p>\n
Realizing he wasn’t wearing them as much as the Yankees’ fortunes ebbed, Giuliani testified, he decided to give the rest to Andrew at a birthday party in 2018. He estimated that the rings, the same as the players received, were worth about $27,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are now yours,\u201d Giuliani recalled saying. \u201cThese are your rings. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m keeping them for. They belong to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ex-mayor took his swings at a Dec. 27 deposition, a week before the start of a courtroom doubleheader in a tug-of-war over assets sought by the two former Georgia election workers who sued him over his lies about them in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s 2020 election loss. A transcript was posted to the court docket on Monday.<\/p>\n
Up first is Giuliani\u2019s contempt hearing in Manhattan federal court Friday over what lawyers for the Georgia women say was his failure to turn over property in a timely fashion, such as his New York City apartment lease.<\/p>\n
Then, on Jan. 16, Judge Lewis J. Liman will hold a trial to decide what happens not only to Giuliani\u2019s World Series rings but also his condominium in Palm Beach, Florida. Giuliani claims the condo, estimated to be worth more than $3 million, is his primary residence and should be exempt.<\/p>\n
For Giuliani, once heralded as \u201cAmerica\u2019s Mayor\u201d for his post-9\/11 leadership, it\u2019s the legal equivalent of two strikes, two out in the bottom of the ninth.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the former election workers, mother and daughter Ruby Freeman and Wandrea \u201cShaye\u201d Moss, argue that Giuliani has engaged in a \u201cconsistent pattern of willful defiance\u201d of court orders to turn over items.<\/p>\n
In a Monday filing, lawyer Aaron Nathan said Giuliani\u2019s compliance has been spotty, noting that while he finally surrendered a Mercedes previous owned by actor Lauren Bacall, he failed to provide the vehicle\u2019s title.<\/p>\n
After listing 26 watches in a bankruptcy filing, Giuliani now claims without explanation that 18 watches he turned over to Freeman and Moss are all he has, Nathan wrote. He added that Giuliani also claims not to know the whereabouts of a shirt signed by Joe DiMaggio or a photo signed by Reggie Jackson, both Yankees legends.<\/p>\n
Freeman and Moss asked the judge in August to award them the World Series rings, but the judge demurred and scheduled a trial after Andrew Giuliani, now 38, said they belong to him.<\/p>\n
Giuliani\u2019s eight hours of deposition testimony offered a vivid portrait of a still-proud, combative and downtrodden man who has lost almost everything and remains convinced that it has been unjustly taken.<\/p>\n
Recalling his days as a two-term Republican mayor, he boasted that he \u201ccured\u201d homelessness in the city while acknowledging that he is now rejected by most clubs he would like to join, except for two.<\/p>\n
Questioned by Nathan, he spoke at length about the rings, his ties to Trump and the Yankees, and his dismay over his once-beloved Big Apple\u2019s liberal politics \u2014 a factor he said drove him to relocate to Florida and register to vote there last May.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankly, I wanted my vote to count,\u201d Giuliani testified.<\/p>\n
Asked why it was important to him to cast a vote for president, Giuliani replied: \u201cBecause I am a very, very strong supporter of Donald Trump, which is the reason why you are doing all of this to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before Trump, it was the Yankees. Giuliani, who saw them win 10 titles during his childhood and college years, regularly cheered the team as mayor, often sitting next to the dugout.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a very ardent Yankee fan,\u201d he testified. \u201cWhen I was the mayor, I was described as New York\u2019s No. 1 Yankee fan.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the team triumphed in 1996 to snap a 15-year drought, Steinbrenner thought \u201cNew York\u2019s No. 1 Yankee fan\u201d deserved a World Series ring \u2014 but Giuliani wasn’t having it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t think it was appropriate that a mayor get a ring,\u201d Giuliani testified.<\/p>\n
By the time he left office in 2002, the Yankees had three more championships.<\/p>\n
At spring training that year in Tampa, Florida, Steinbrenner presented him with a plaque and three World Series rings, Giuliani testified, each engraved with his name.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very touched and moved by that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Yankees also gave him the 1996 ring that he turned down, he said. He recalled showing all four rings to his son and telling him: \u201cThese are going to be yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each ring was bigger and more extravagant than the last, Giuliani testified, so much so that \u201cyou’d look crazy wearing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giuliani lamented that his rings didn\u2019t bring the Yankees more success, noting their 2003 World Series loss to the Marlins and 2004 playoff collapse against the hated Red Sox.<\/p>\n
\u201cI stopped wearing them after the Yankees stopped winning because it was no longer working,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then I wasn\u2019t using them anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Rudy Giuliani\u2019s life gets stripped for parts to satisfy a $148 million defamation verdict, the former New York City mayor is fighting to keep one gleaming set of sports memorabilia in the family: Yankees World Series rings bestowed to him by the tea…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,186,708,705,709,711,707,706,50,710],"class_list":["post-23061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","tag-712","tag-article","tag-bullfighting","tag-courts","tag-elections","tag-general-news","tag-mlb-world-series","tag-politics","tag-sports","tag-u-s-news"],"yoast_head":"\n