With Giuliani's name inscribed in the 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000
diamond-and-gold rings, memorabilia and baseball experts say they are
collectively worth a minimum of $200,000. The Yankees say that Giuliani did pay
for his rings—but only $16,000, and years after he had left office. Anyone
paying for the rings is as unusual as a mayor getting one, since neither the
Yankees nor any other recent champion have sold rings to virtually anyone. The
meager payment, however, is less than half of the replacement value of the
rings, and that's a fraction of the market price, especially with the added
value of Giuliani's name.

What's more troubling is that Giuliani's receipt of the rings may be a
serious breach of the law, and one that could still be prosecuted. New York
officials are barred from taking a gift of greater than $50 value from anyone
doing business with the city, and under Giuliani, that statute was enforced
aggressively against others. His administration forced a fire department chief,
for example, to retire, forfeit $93,105 in salary, and pay a $6,000 fine for
taking Broadway tickets to two shows and a free week in a ski condo from a city
vendor. The city's Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) has applied the gift rule
to discounts as well, unless the cheaper rate "is available generally to all
government employees." When a buildings department deputy commissioner was
indicted in 2000 for taking Mets and Rangers tickets, as well as a family trip
to Florida, from a vendor, an outraged Giuliani denounced his conduct as
"reprehensible," particularly "at high levels in city agencies," and said that
such officials had to be "singled out" and "used as examples."

City officials are also required to disclose gifts from anyone but
relatives on forms filed with the COIB, something Giuliani did not do with any
of the rings. Giuliani certainly used to sound serious about the need for full
public disclosure. In 1989, he denounced his mayoral opponent, David Dinkins,
for failing to disclose frequent-flier tickets to France given to him by a
friend, even though the friend did no business with the city; Giuliani called it
an example of "arrogance and disrespect for legal and ethical obligations."

But when did Giuliani get that 1996 ring? Did he, as the Yankee spokeswoman
suggests, receive it only when he made a token payment for it in 2004, after he
was no longer mayor?

Not according to the man who actually made the ring,
William Sandoval.

Sandoval says he's made rings for 26 years. After attending a
stone-setter school, he went to work for L.G. Balfour in Attleboro,
Massachusetts, which manufactured sports and school rings at its plant there for
84 years. "I was a special maker, doing diamond settings and customer repair,"
the Guatemala-born jeweler, now with his own small business in Rhode Island,
tells the Voice. "I did the Yankees, the Celtics, and the Baltimore Orioles.
Balfour liked my work. I did every championship ring." He particularly recalls
the 1996 ring he did for the Yankees. Fifty percent larger than any previous
team ring, the famous interlocking NY at the center was made of 23 diamonds, one
for each title, encircled by the words World Champion. With the Series trophy
and courage and heart on one side, the ring also featured the Yankee Stadium
facade, the Yankees top hat, and the word tradition on the other.

It was easy to remember because it was Sandoval's last championship ring.
Balfour was acquired by a New York investment firm in 1996 and closed its
Attleboro plant to move to Texas in late 1997, laying off hundreds of workers.
Its successor firm, American Achievement, still does Yankee work.

Sandoval distinctly remembers that they made a ring for Giuliani because,
he says, he crafted it himself. Asked if he was certain if the Giuliani ring was
made at the same time as the rest, he says: "It has to be at the same time."
Asked again if he "definitely" remembers making a ring for Rudy Giuliani,
Sandoval replies: "Yes. Oh, yes." His memory is confirmed by a former Balfour
vice president who oversaw sports sales and asked that his name not be used. "I
honestly think that Giuliani did get a ring," he says. "The only people who
could get rings had to have a letter signed by Steinbrenner on Yankee
stationery." Attempts to get the current manufacturer to confirm that rings were
made for Giuliani for the other three championships were unsuccessful; the sales
representative for the firm referred all questions to the Yankees.

Two other sources who asked that they not be named recall the 1996 ring. A
member of Giuliani's police detail remembers attending a barbecue at Gracie
Mansion after the ticker tape parade for the Yankees on October 29, 1996.
Giuliani was so involved in the Yankee celebration, he personally reviewed the
guest lists for the barbecue and an earlier event at City Hall. A photo of him
in Yankee pinstripes appeared on the passes for attendees. His two prime
Democratic opponents for the 1997 campaign had to settle for seats in the crowd
at City Hall, though both were borough presidents, one from the Bronx. "George
and he went into the Green Room at one point," the ex-cop recalls, referring to
a den where Giuliani frequently entertained friends and close associates. "They
were gone for about 15 minutes. He came out and said to us, 'I'm getting a ring.
George is giving me a ring.' " Though the cop can't recall seeing the ring after
that, he says that another Giuliani aide told him that the mayor got it, as well
as other rings.

That aide, who worked in City Hall throughout the Giuliani years, says the
mayor got the ring sometime in 1997, around the time that the players got their
rings in mid May. "The ring was kept in the second or third drawer of Beth
Petrone's cabinet in Rudy's outer office at City Hall," says the aide, referring
to Giuliani's executive assistant, who is currently the office manager for
Bracewell & Giuliani, the Texas-based law firm that Giuliani has joined. "He
actually wore it about once a year. He may have worn it during the playoffs in
1997 as a lucky charm.

"The other three rings came collectively," the aide continues. "I saw them
in wooden boxes with Plexiglas windows. They were either kept in the mayor's
personal office on the main floor or his downstairs office. He didn't get the
1998 and 1999 rings as they were handed out. They were just given to him
sometime in 2001 as a collection." The 2000 ring wasn't presented to players
until late July 2001, so Giuliani's rings would've arrived sometime after that.
Though gifts to mayors are routinely logged on a City Hall list, Giuliani listed
only one Steinbrenner gift among his more than 8,500 gifts bequeathed to the
city: a videotape and booklet from Joe DiMaggio Day.

This aide and other sources close to City Hall recall that Giuliani's name
was misspelled on one of the rings, returned to the Yankees, and replaced. News
accounts of the 1999 ring presentation in 2000 indicated that there were
mistakes on six rings, but the only one specified in the stories was that Roger
Clemens's uniform number was wrong. The sources say that Carmela Piazza, who ran Giuliani's correspondence office at City Hall, oversaw the return of the ring,
another indication that it was given to Giuliani while he was still in office.
Contacted by the Voice, Piazza, who is a current donor to his presidential
campaign, said repeatedly that she couldn't remember anything about the
incident. A Yankee official initially confirmed that there was a spelling
problem with one of the Giuliani rings, but later said he could not definitely
determine if it happened. Spokeswoman McGillion, who was receiving limited
information from the Yankees, acknowledges that "another person" affiliated with
the team "hinted this to us."

Frequently ensconced in George Steinbrenner's eight-seat 31A box and four
Legends 31AA seats next to the Yankee dugout while he was mayor, Giuliani and
his many guests were also repeatedly given Yankee jackets, caps, autographed
balls, and other gifts. "He would require gifts at every game," says a former
close Giuliani aide, whose account is supported by both a Yankee source and an
ex-cop assigned to the mayor. He even wanted a fitted cap with the World Series
logo and other special caps, and the equipment management had to reach into the
players' uniform case to find one for Giuliani's large head. The Giuliani group
also raided the closet in Steinbrenner's office, even taking DiMaggio jackets
with red piping for the mayor and guests. "They finally turned the spigot off in
2000 and said we just can't do it anymore," the aide recalls. The cop remembers
jackets and balls—some signed by all the Yankees—stuffed in the back of the city
cars they used to drive back from the stadium....

With tickets for Giuliani's box and Legends seats selling for $50 to
$200 for regular-season games, and with Giuliani and an average of eight guests
attending a minimum of 20 games a year, the eight-year price tag for the mayor,
including the far more expensive postseason games he never missed, would have
been an estimated $120,000. That's quite a load on an average salary of
$150,000. Obviously, any substantial tickets and assorted gifts to the mayor or
his city employee guests would also have run afoul of the $50 COIB limit.

At one point, according to the close aide, George Pataki's office asked if
the seats could be "split in half, either horizontally or vertically" so the
governor could get access. "Absolutely not," was Rudy's answer. What about just
two of the seats? Another no. Asked if he'd ever sat in the prized seats, Gene
Budig, who was American League president for most of the Giuliani years, tells
the Voice: "I got to sit in seats a couple of times when he wasn't there, but
never with him. The seats were practically in the dugout." The prominence of the
seats and the success of the team quickly catapulted Giuliani into prime-time
sports hero status. He even managed to get himself interviewed on camera in the
locker-room champagne celebrations of the great victories, running right in
through the dugout after the game. That was in addition to his regular
fifth-inning appearance on the Yankee radio broadcast.

Giuliani's sense of entitlement about the Yankees was so deep that he frequently
used a police boat to haul himself and his guests to games, using either the
slip near Gracie Mansion or the Wall Street/South Street one near City Hall. In
his own book, Leadership, he revealed that the first Yankee game he ever took
Judi Nathan to was David Cone's perfect game in July 1999, almost a full year
before he announced at a press conference that she was his "very good friend."
Judi and her girlfriends became part of his stadium entourage, just as his
previous very good friend, Cristyne Lategano, had been in the earlier years.
When Giuliani's wife Donna Hanover barred Lategano from the box if her son
Andrew was at the game, the young press aide sequestered herself in
Steinbrenner's suite, extending Giuliani's reach to the home-plate section of
the stadium as well. Judi, too, eventually became a presence in the Steinbrenner
suite.

The Yankees say that Mayor Bloomberg has purchased four season tickets in
Section 53, behind the Steinbrenner box that Giuliani still uses, and pays even
when he attends in his official capacity. Bloomberg does not allow anyone on the
city payroll to use his seats because he regards it as granting an improper
benefit to a subordinate. (The Yankee spokeswoman declined to characterize the
difference between how the two mayors dealt with seating at the stadium.)
Giuliani's periodic payments for some of these tickets may also have had a tax
motive. Had he paid nothing for the seats, he would have had to treat the entire
Yankee goodie bag as income.