Arizona officials say they can’t find Rudy Giuliani to serve him with indictment notice
By Zachary Cohen, CNN
(CNN) — Arizona prosecutors have tried for weeks – and so far failed – to serve Rudy Giuliani with notice of his indictment related to an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
Giuliani is among a group of former President Donald Trump’s allies indicted last month in Arizona alongside the 11 individuals who acted as fake GOP electors from the state in the last presidential election. But the former New York City mayor and one-time attorney for Trump is the only defendant prosecutors have been unable to serve with a summons, according to Richie Taylor, a spokesperson for the Arizona attorney general’s office.
The summons is a formal notice that Giuliani has been criminally charged and must appear before a judge on May 21, and a team of prosecutors and investigators working for Arizona Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes has made multiple attempts to locate him, Taylor told CNN.
CNN has reached out to a spokesman for Giuliani for comment.
Giuliani, multiple associates have told CNN, is in Palm Beach, Florida, at his residence. According to two sources familiar with Giuliani’s movements, the former mayor has been traveling back and forth between Palm Beach and New York City where he has been alternating between working on a planned appeal of the $148 million defamation judgment against him, which a district judge denied Tuesday, and the sale of his $5.7 million New York City apartment, where prosecutors have tried for weeks to serve him.
According to Taylor, two agents for the attorney general’s office traveled to New York City with plans to hand-deliver the notice to Giuliani the day after the state-level grand jury handed up its indictment.
The agents believed Giuliani was likely in his New York City apartment because he had recently video streamed from there – which they determined by matching the setting of the feed with pictures of the interior of the residence from an old real estate listing.
But upon arriving at the building, a person at the front desk told the agents they were not allowed to accept service of the documents, according to Taylor, who added that the individual did not dispute Giuliani lived there.
“We were not granted access,” Taylor added, confirming details previously reported by the Washington Post.
While Trump is not among those charged in Arizona, the details in the indictment suggest he is “Unindicted Coconspirator 1.”
“In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as President on November 3, 2020,” the indictment reads. “Unwilling to accept this fact, Defendants and unindicted coconspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters.”
Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, his close adviser Boris Epshteyn, the Republican National Committee’s top lawyer for “election integrity” Christina Bobb and former Trump campaign aide Mike Roman are among those charged in Arizona alongside Giuliani.
All of the defendants except Giuliani have been served.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
CNN’s John Miller contributed to this report.
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