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Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani attends a ceremony in Zuccotti Park, organized by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, on the 19th Anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, New York, NY, September 11, 2020, The names of nearly 3,000 victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks were read by family members. (Anthony Behar/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images).
Rudy Giuliani is on the verge of losing yet another legal battle and is pleading with a federal judge in Manhattan not to make it so.
Late last year, while the former New York City mayor was beset by cascading troubles in the ongoing defamation case — which led to a since-aborted effort to declare bankruptcy — brought by two former Georgia election workers, a little-noticed and entirely separate defamation case cleared significant hurdles in the court system.
The case attained a level of stealth so great that Giuliani failed to respond to two key deadlines. The judge overseeing the matter has directed the plaintiff to file for a default judgment.
Giuliani, in turn, protested that he was simply not aware of those deadlines — and other important events in the lawsuit — because he “had not been checking the email address assigned to this case.”
In the underlying case, Daniel Gill, a former grocery store employee, claims Giuliani lied to police in Staten Island about a political meet-and-greet in order to have the man arrested.
“Plaintiff Daniel Gill worked at the ShopRite and had done so for many years, in contrast to Giuliani, who has not held an actual job in over a decade,” the lawsuit reads. “Plaintiff took a break from his work, walked up to Defendant Giuliani, patted or tapped him on the back, said ‘what’s up scumbag,’ and walked away.”
Giuliani, however, allegedly told police law enforcement that Gill “hit” him and caused him pain — and wanted the worker arrested. Police officers obliged that request, and Gill spent some 21 hours in jail, according to the lawsuit. An assault charge was later downgraded to a misdemeanor offense; then, the charge was dismissed altogether.
In May 2023, suing for $2 million in the Southern District of New York, Gill originally alleged various causes of action against Giuliani, the NYPD officers in question, and New York City. Most of the claims against most parties were dismissed on Nov. 21, 2024. But a lone claim survived: Gill’s defamation allegation against Giuliani.
The plaintiff claims the defendant went on to disparage him as looking “drunk or high” — and caused him to lose his job with such comments — in ensuing media appearances.
In turn, on the next day, U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote set a conference for Dec. 12, 2024 — which Giuliani did not attend. Nor did the former federal prosecutor file his answer due Dec. 5, 2024 — a date determined by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The judge then instructed the plaintiff to file a motion for a default judgment — a judgment in the plaintiff’s favor due to the defendant’s repeat failure to appear or reply — by Jan. 3.
On Dec. 29, Giuliani, who is representing himself pro se — acting as his own attorney — sought to forestall that would-be own-goal.
“I write to seek leave from the Court to accept the attached answer, even though it was filed after the Court-allotted deadline,” Giuliani’s letter reads. “I have a reasonable excuse for the untimeliness of my answer and it certainly was not intentional. On November 21, 2023, I filed my reply in further support of my motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint. The case remained completely dormant for a full year and then a year later, on November 21, 2024, the Court decided the aforementioned motion to dismiss. The matter was not on my radar and I did not receive the Court’s decision and order on the motion to dismiss, and its subsequent order for an initial conference to be held on December 12, 2024. I had not been checking the email address assigned to this case as frequently during that time period.”
The onetime leader of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York went on to say that he simply was not receiving notice of court filings made in the federal government’s free, public access online court system website because such filings “were being sent to another folder, apart from” his “main inbox.”
“I have since corrected that issue and I received the Court’s order, dated December 12, 2024,” Giuliani continued. “I also thought that if many of the claims were dismissed, which they were, the Court would have ordered Plaintiff to conform the complaint to the Court’s decision.”
Along with the letter begging for grace, Giuliani filed a copy of his much-delayed answer to the remaining claim in Gill’s lawsuit.
To date, Cote has not ruled on the request for leave of court.
