Rudy Giuliani loses game of indictment hide-and-seek with Arizona officials

Rudy Giuliani, who for weeks had evaded Arizona officials’ efforts to deliver notice of his indictment in the state election fraud case, was finally served in Florida on Friday night after openly taunting the Arizona attorney general on social media — and at his 80th birthday party, no less.

Arizona prosecutors had been trying to locate Giuliani last month, believing that he was filming his YouTube show — one of his last remaining sources of income — from his Manhattan apartment. He is one of 18 defendants indicted in Arizona for allegedly scheming to overturn the 2020 state election results in then-President Donald Trump’s favor. And until Friday night, he was the only defendant who had yet to be served notice of his indictment.

Arizona authorities caught up with him at his birthday soirée in Palm Beach late on Friday, NBC News reported. (His actual birthday is May 28.) In a post on X that night, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that Giuliani had been served “moments ago.”

It was an abrupt twist of fate for Giuliani, who just hours previously had goaded state officials on the same platform, posting a photo of himself beaming among his MAGA cohorts. He wrote that if Arizona prosecutors can’t “find” him by the next morning, “they must dismiss the indictment” and “must concede they can’t count votes.”

He also appeared to have livestreamed his YouTube show from the party, speaking with a rotating cast of guests that included Roger Stone and Steve Bannon.

Giuliani has since deleted his post on X, but it lives on; Mayes shared a screenshot of it on her account.

Giuliani had mocked state prosecutors earlier this week as well, saying on the livestream of his YouTube show that their inability to find him “is perfect evidence that if they’re so incompetent, they can’t find me, they also can’t count votes correctly.”

The former New York City mayor — who is notorious for having popularized the practice of creating a public spectacle around criminal defendants — claimed he was unfazed by the latest twist in his legal ordeals. Giuliani’s spokesperson, Ted Goodman, told NBC News that the former mayor was not affected by the effort to “embarrass him” during his party, and that they “look forward to full vindication soon.”

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com