MANHATTAN (CN) — Inundated with ballooning legal fees and judgments, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in Manhattan federal court Thursday, one week after he was ordered to pay $148 million in damages to two Georgia election workers he baselessly accused of committing election fraud to steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden.
Estimating his liabilities between $100,000,001 and $500 million, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
Formerly known as “America’s Mayor” following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Giuliani estimates his current net worth at between $1,000,001 and $10 million, according to the 24-page bankruptcy filing.
He lists nearly $153 million in existing or potential debts, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax liabilities, money he owes his lawyers and many millions of dollars in potential legal judgments in lawsuits he still faces.
A spokesperson for Giuliani defended the bankruptcy filing as a measure to buy Giuliani some breathing room to handle his millions of dollars of liabilities.
"The filing should be a surprise to no one. No person could have reasonably believed that Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be able to pay such a high punitive amount,” the spokesperson told Courthouse News on Thursday afternoon. “Chapter 11 will afford Mayor Giuliani the opportunity and time to pursue an appeal, while providing transparency for his finances under the supervision of the bankruptcy court, to ensure all creditors are treated equally and fairly throughout the process."
Creditors named in the suit included Ruby Freeman & Wandrea Moss, the two Black Georgia election workers who won the defamation judgment; the Smartmatic USA voting technology company that accused Giuliani in a $2.7 billion civil defamation suit for airing false statements that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election against Trump; his former assistant Noelle Dunphy, who accused him of sexual harassment and drunken abuse in a civil lawsuit; and Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, who claims Giuliani had hacked his personal devices.
Freeman and Moss testified Giuliani’s false claims about the 2020 election resulted in a relentless wave of hateful and violent invective toward them by Trump’s supporters, who accused them of committing treason and threatened to lynch them.
Giuliani vowed to appeal the judgment in the Georgia election workers’ case, telling reporters last week that the “absurdity of the number merely underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding.”
“It will be reversed so quickly it will make your head spin, and the absurd number that just came in will help that actually,” he said.
It had long been unclear how Giuliani will be able to pay the nearly $150 million he now owes the plaintiffs in the D.C. defamation case, while he faces mounting financial costs from additional legal woes.
At the start of the Georgia election workers' defamation trial in D.C. federal, Giuliani's attorney Joseph Sibley IV said the plaintiffs' initial request of $43 million in damages amounted to a "civil death penalty."
Giuliani’s attorneys in the pending Smartmatic defamation case in Manhattan Supreme Court told a judge in August that he was “close to broke,” unable to pay monthly phone bills or cover the costs of his electronic discovery vendor, TrustPoint One.
Another former attorney, Robert Costello — who represented the former mayor from 2019 to July 2023 — sued him in September for failure to pay nearly $1.4 million in legal fees. Giuliani also reportedly owes the IRS $549,435 in unpaid taxes from 2021.
Giuliani earns approximately $400,000 annually from his daily radio show New York's TalkRadio 77 WABC, The New York Times reported in August based on an anonymous source. He also brings in income derived from his podcast and a livestream podcast, which the Times observed is “nowhere near enough to cover his debts."
Giuliani has also faces racketeering charges in Fulton County, Georgia — the same charges he brought against members of New York’s “Five Families” as a U.S. attorney in the 1980s — over his efforts to interfere in the Peach State’s election.
He pleaded not guilty on Sept. 1 to Georgia state criminal charges.
Other members of Trump’s legal team and Giuliani’s co-defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell have taken plea deals in recent weeks and are likely to testify against Giuliani and Trump in the case.
They are also likely witnesses in Trump’s election subversion case in Washington, where Giuliani is one of six unnamed co-conspirators.
Follow @jruss_jruss
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
