'Unreasonably difficult': Unsealed docs refute Giuliani claim his lawyers are to blame for legal woes

24 December 2024

In 2023, two former Georgia election workers— Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss — enjoyed a major victory in their defamation lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani when a jury ordered the

former New York City mayor to pay them $148 million in damages.

Giuliani has been fighting that judgement. And he has also been engaged in a battle with attorneys Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski, who represented him in the case before motioning to withdraw from it.

According to Law & Crime's Jerry Lambe, the attorneys "who unceremoniously quit representing" Giuliani "in his receivership case concerning the $148 million he owes" Freeman and Moss were "forced to part ways with the former New York City mayor" after he said he "would not participate" in discovery for the case.

The motion for Caruso and Labkowski to withdraw from the case, Lambe reports, has been unsealed.

In the motion, Caruso wrote, "Defendant has informed us that he will not participate in electronic discovery in the Homestead Action. Specifically, he has informed us that he will not identify or provide access to his electronic device(s) for imaging by an electronics-discovery vendor, which we have identified. We have a fundamental disagreement with that position. Defendant's position also constitutes a failure to cooperate with us in the representation and renders it unreasonably difficult for us to carry out our employment effectively."

Lambe notes that in November, Caruso and Labkowski "withdrew" as "Giuliani’s counsel without informing the former New York City mayor of their intention to nix him as a client, citing a professional conduct rule permitting the termination of representation under specific circumstances, including a 'fundamental disagreement' with a client, a client insisting on presenting a claim that 'cannot be supported by good faith argument,' and when the representation of a client becomes 'unreasonably difficult.'"

Giuliani, meanwhile, has been raging against Caruso and Labkowski and accusing them of letting him down in the case.

According to Lambe, Caruso and Labkowski "initially sought to file the motion under seal" — and U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman "rejected the request but allowed a heavily redacted version of the document to be posted to the public docket that did not give specific information about what led to their withdrawals."

Lambe explains, "The redacted motion may have been left to lie untouched, but Giuliani recently began accusing Caruso and Labkowski of being responsible for his failures to abide by court orders and deadlines."

According to Lambe, Giuliani has "argued that Caruso and Labkowski should never have filed their motions to withdraw with the court, but even so, the motions were 'rendered moot' once Giuliani, his former attorneys, and (attorney Joseph Mr.) Cammarata signed a consent order granting substitution of attorney. The consent order was filed one day after Caruso and Labkowski sought to withdraw from the case, but Liman did not immediately sign the order."

After the United States' 2020 presidential election, Giuliani (who was a lawyer for Donald Trump at the time) falsely claimed that the election was stolen from Trump in Georgia through widespread voter fraud. But that bogus claim was repeatedly debunked, and two of Georgia's most prominent Republicans — Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — said that President Joe Biden's victory in their state was perfectly legitimate.

Giuliani, according to the Freeman/Moss lawsuit, falsely accused them of helping Biden steal the election in Georgia. And both of them said they were inundated with death threats and feared for their safety.

Read Jerry Lambe's full article for Law & Crime at this link.

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