Daniel Gill’s lawyer says his client was caught up in a bad parody of a personal injury case.
“It was almost as if he was playing a leading role in some bad lawyer movie where he gets bumped into in a supermarket and a week later he shows up in court, in a wheelchair with his leg in traction and a neck brace on,” said Ronald Kuby in an interview Thursday.
But the “lawyer” he’s referring to is Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and attorney for former President Donald Trump.
Kuby is representing Daniel Gill, a Staten Island ShopRite worker who patted Giuliani on the back and called him a “scumbag.”
Gill was charged with second-degree assault — a felony — and spent a day in jail. The charges were later downgraded and eventually dismissed. Now Gill is suing the former mayor for $2 million in a defamation lawsuit.
“No crime was committed, no offense was committed,” Kuby said. “It was just your basic heckling of a very public figure engaged in political campaigning. Rudy Giuliani saw this as yet another opportunity to portray himself as some sort of victim of the left and woke politics.”
Gill was working his usual gig at the store on Veteran’s Road West on June 26, 2022, when Giuliani stopped in for a meet-and-greet related to his son Andrew’s failed gubernatorial campaign.
What happened next was caught on video: Gill approached Giuliani, gave him a pat or tap on the back, and said “What’s up, scumbag?”
Gill’s contact with the former mayor moved someone to call the police.
When NYPD officers arrived, Giuliani told them Gill had smacked him “very, very hard on the back” and asked for Gill to be arrested, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit alleges that Giuliani dramatized his account of what happened. He said he felt like “somebody shot me,” that the slap had caused him to stumble forward, and that he had pain and “a big lump on the back.”
None of the claims were substantiated by medical documents, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also alleges that Giuliani conspired with Staten Island police officers, which the former mayor himself confirmed publicly.
“‘Some guy in the DA's office was trying to lower the charges,’” he is quoted in the lawsuit as saying. “‘And the cops said no, this is a 78-year-old guy, this is assault two, no assault three. This guy is going in!’”
As a result of Giuliani’s accusation and the attention it brought, Gill lost his job at the ShopRite, Kuby said. He now works nights at another supermarket so that he won’t be seen by “angry Giuliani supporters” who may recognize him.
This is the second time the former mayor-turned-Trump-lawyer has been sued this week.
On Monday, Noelle Dunphy filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court claiming that Giuliani harassed and sexually assaulted her from 2019 through 2021 when she worked as his business development director.
Ted Goodman, a representative for Giuliani, told the Daily News that the suit “doesn’t have legal merit” and should be dismissed.
Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
