NEW YORK \u2014 A Manhattan judge on Wednesday ordered former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to sit for a deposition in his sexual harassment case while urging both sides to prioritize settlement talks.<\/p>\n
Scheduling the Jan. 30 deposition at a virtual hearing, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Moyne chastised Giuliani’s lawyer for trying to drag out deadlines in the yearslong litigation brought by Noelle Dunphy.<\/p>\n
The judge appeared exasperated by Giuliani’s team having made little effort to challenge the serious accusations of sexual assault and harassment made by Dunphy, incidents she alleges occurred while she worked unpaid as Giuliani’s assistant and has audio proof of.<\/p>\n
The judge shot down Giuliani’s bid to dismiss the case in March and directed his lawyers to go ahead and make formal demands for evidence and to depose Dunphy.<\/p>\n
Four months later, Giuliani’s team has yet to take any action.<\/p>\n
“There should be no reason why,” the judge said. “You should be pushing aggressively, because it’s in your interest as well as the interest of moving the case.”<\/p>\n
In her May 2023 suit, Dunphy alleges Giuliani hired her in January 2019 to serve as his director of business development with a salary of $1 million and that he had claimed he would pay her at the conclusion of his contentious divorce proceedings with his ex-wife Judith Nathan.<\/p>\n
Dunphy alleges that for two years, she worked untenable hours without pay and was repeatedly sexually assaulted and harassed by Giuliani when he was drunk. The suit demands $10 million, a jury trial, and lists claims for battery, assault, sexual harassment, and creating a hostile work environment.<\/p>\n
Giuliani, 82, has denied the allegations and claims Dunphy never worked as his assistant, describing their relationship as a fling.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the hearing, Adam Katz, representing Giuliani, said the former mayor’s defense<\/a> had been hindered by Giuliani’s poor health, which Dunphy’s lawyer, Bill Robedee, said was all the more reason to depose him as soon as possible.<\/p>\n Giuliani’s representative Ted Goodman in May said Giuliani had been placed on life support at a Florida hospital<\/a> over complications stemming from a restrictive airway disease he contracted while working at ground zero in the aftermath of the 9\/11 attack.<\/p>\n “Whether you choose to believe it or not, he was \u2014 he was given the last rites,” Katz said in court Wednesday.<\/p>\n “Why do you say ‘choose to believe it’? I haven’t expressed any opinion about that one way or the other,” Moyne said, later noting that Giuliani’s health woes hadn’t been detailed anywhere in the case.<\/p>\n “I don’t want to argue with you, but I don’t know what Mr. Giuliani’s medical condition \u2014 or whether he was given last rites \u2014 I don’t know what that has to do with you issuing discovery demands,” the judge said, perplexed. “I don’t see the link between those two things.”<\/p>\n Moyne asked Robedee if Dunphy’s team would produce the recordings to Giuliani’s team within 60 days \u2014 even though they hadn’t been formally requested \u2014 which Robedee said he would. The judge scheduled Dunphy’s deposition for Dec. 15.<\/p>\n Dunphy’s attorney Bill Robedee told the Daily News that he and his client “were pleased to see forward momentum in the case today.”<\/p>\n “I am looking forward to ensuring she has her day in court, and justice, as expeditiously as the law allows,” he said.<\/p>\n The case is among a labyrinth of the disbarred Giuliani’s legal woes<\/a> to play out in recent years<\/a>, including a failed bankruptcy bid<\/a> and a defamation lawsuit brought by a mother and daughter from Georgia whom a jury determined Giuliani defamed as trying to rig the 2020 election for President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n