He has no money left, or so he says. Rudy Giuliani, the internationally known former mayor of New York and disgraced former lawyer for Donald Trump, declared himself bankrupt in the American courts on Thursday, a week after he was ordered to pay $148 million to two appraisers was. Elections in Georgia, which he defamed by accusing them of manipulating the results at their polling place.
Rudy Giuliani, who led former President Trump's campaign to invalidate the 2020 election results, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in Manhattan federal court, listing $100 million to $500 million in debts and $1 million to $10 million in assets million dollars, according to court documents consulted by AFP.
Last Friday, a federal court jury in Washington sentenced him to pay $148 million in compensatory and moral damages to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Shaye Moss, two poll workers from the state of Georgia (Southeast) during the presidential election November 2020.
“Giuliani’s lies”
The vote was won by Democrat Joe Biden, but the Republican billionaire, who dreams of a return to the White House, has believed for more than three years that victory was stolen from him.
Creditors listed by Giuliani in his personal bankruptcy filing include the IRS and the NYS Department of Taxation & Finance for millions of dollars in accumulated debts. As well as lawyers, electronic voting machine companies and… President Biden's son, Hunter Biden.
Last Friday, plaintiff Shaye Moss described the “devastating” years she spent with her mother because of the “lies of Rudy Giuliani,” a former personal lawyer and very close to Donald Trump.
From a video showing the mother and daughter passing an item – which turned out to be a mint tablet – during the counting of ballots in Georgia, Giuliani, 79, a lawyer by training, claimed they exchanged a USB flash drive , “as if it were doses of heroin or cocaine” to falsify the results.
The two black women had told how these allegations, picked up by Donald Trump on social networks, brought them a barrage of insults and threats, often of a racist nature.
After admitting the falsity of his accusations in July, Rudy Giuliani reiterated last Friday that he had “no doubt that his statements were valid then and now,” but said he had been prevented from providing evidence.
Former “Mayor of America” after 9/11
The former “Mayor of America,” known worldwide for his handling of the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks and his role as a former anti-Mafia prosecutor in New York, has since fallen from grace.
He called the requested amount of $148 million “absurdity.” So much so that his declaration of bankruptcy “should not surprise anyone,” defended his advisor Ted Goodman on Thursday in a press release published on social networks.
“No one could reasonably believe that Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be able to pay such a fine,” he insisted, asserting that “Chapter 11 gave him the opportunity to appeal” the $148 million verdict .
According to local media, a judge on Wednesday also ordered that amount to be paid “immediately” to prevent the former judge from buying time by concealing his assets.
Rudy Giuliani is also being sued by the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, which represented him for several years, claiming $1.36 million in unpaid debts. He is also the subject of civil defamation lawsuits brought by electronic voting machine companies Dominion and Smartmatic, as well as Hunter Biden for breaches of electronic data relating to his personal life. The amounts demanded are “undetermined”.
Rudy Giuliani was indicted by Georgia courts in August along with Donald Trump and 17 others on charges of gerrymandering to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that key state.
Four of the 19 defendants named in the August indictment under an organized crime law have pleaded guilty. In exchange for their testimony in the future trial of the other defendants, they received reduced sentences with no prison time.