A federal judge in New York on Friday threw out a bankruptcy case filed by Rudy Giuliani, the onetime New York City mayor and longtime adviser to former President Donald Trump.
The decision is a victory for the two Georgia election workers who won $148 million in damages from Giuliani in a defamation suit last year, along with other creditors seeking reimbursement from the embattled former mayor. Giuliani’s decision to enter bankruptcy proceedings had prevented the women, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, from collecting.
The judge barred Giuliani from filing for bankruptcy protections again for a period of one year.
Giuliani’s repeated efforts to smear the 2020 presidential election as fraudulent helped land him in the dire financial straits he now finds himself in. He spread conspiracy theories about Moss and Freeman, falsely accusing them of hauling in suitcases full of ballots to skew the election results for Democrat Joe Biden.
The mother-daughter pair first filed suit against him in 2021, but it wasn’t until May of this year that Giuliani agreed to finally stop spreading lies about them.
Other entities Giuliani owes money to include Brooks Brothers, American Airlines, Florida’s Emerald Dunes golf club, assorted lawyers and the Internal Revenue Service for income taxes.
In his 22-page opinion, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said Giuliani had omitted certain assets or income streams and refused full cooperation, noting Giuliani’s “continued failure to meet his reporting obligations and provide the financial transparency required of a debtor in possession.”
“Every single monthly operating report filed by Mr. Giuliani has been untimely,” Lane wrote. “Perhaps even more troubling, the information in the monthly operating reports has been incomplete or inaccurate.”
Giuliani has blamed the delays on the difficulty he’s had in finding an accountant.
While some of his creditors wanted the bankruptcy case to proceed, Lane ultimately sided with Moss and Freeman due to a fear that dragging out the proceedings would deplete the value of Giuliani’s estate. Continuing the bankruptcy proceedings would also delay other lawsuits Giuliani is named in — including a sexual harassment suit filed by a former associate, Nicole Dunphy.
Giuliani put his New York City apartment, worth an estimated $5.6 million, on the market earlier this year, but has tried to avoid selling his Florida condo worth an estimated $3.5 million.
