Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was sued this week by a former employee alleging, among other things, sexual harassment and assault. Giuliani denies the allegations. Now he's being sued again by a Staten Island ShopRite employee.
According to the New York Daily News, Giuliani is being sued by the employee who put his hand on Giuliani's back and called him a "Scumbag." The incident landed the store employee in prison, he lost his job and conservatives came after him. The charges were ultimately dismissed, but Gill and his lawyer argue that Giuliani continued lying about the incident causing more harm to Gill.
Giuliani claimed at the time that he was assaulted by a man who attacked him. He called it assaulting an elderly person. Giuliani remarked the experience was like being “hit on the back as if a boulder hit me."
CCTV footage of the incident showed a different story. Gill approached Giuliani, patted him on the back with an open palm, said something and walked off. The ordeal was over in seconds.
Giuliani alleged Gill said, “What’s up, s---tbag?” after the pat and before attacking his stance on abortion.
“He kept cursing. He wouldn’t stop,” Giuliani said of the incident. “He kept menacing and threatening me. So I said let’s get him arrested. Let’s make an example out of him.”
CCTV shows Gill walking off, leaving little time for the prolonged interaction Guiliani alleges.
The lawsuit quoted by NYDN begins with a statement from Mayor Eric Adams, who implied at the time of the incident that Giuliani was irresponsibly reporting a crime when none had occurred.
“Someone needs to remind former Mayor Giuliani that falsely reporting a crime is a crime," Adams said in the June 2022 statement. "What he stated, there was a lot of creativity, and I think the district attorney, he has the wrong person he is investigating ... When you look at the video, the guy basically walked by and patted him on the back."
Gill said that he intended to sue last year, but he was then charged with felony assault. Prosecutors downgraded it and then ultimately dismissed it altogether, NYDN explained.
Civil Rights lawyer Ron Kuby has taken up the case for Gill, saying a lawsuit wouldn't get him his job back or solve the invasion of privacy Gill experienced, or the defamation from Giuliani, but it would be a step in the right direction. Giuliani claimed publicly during a national media tour that he had "wounds" on his back that he suffered as a result of the "attack." As a result, Gill was inundated with hate mail and threats as a result.
"Rudy Giuliani’s lies have caused incalculable damage to this country, but his lies about Daniel Gill should cost him about $2 million," Kuby said in a statement to NYDN. “And the Staten Island police went along with it ... They made sure that Gill spent at least a night in jail. The cops should be careful who they do favors for while wearing body cameras."
Giuliani's spokesperson claimed the arrest decision was made by the police after their investigation, not Giuliani. As such, he said, the suit "doesn't have legal merit."
”An unbiased observer will see this meritless complaint as absurd — with its extraneous political hyperbole, like in paragraph 22 when the attorney felt it (necessary) to refer to the specific area of Staten Island as a ‘bastion of white conservatism and Trump support,'" the spokesperson also said.
