Rudy Giuliani, internationally renowned former mayor of New York and disgraced ex-lawyer of Donald Trump, declared himself bankrupt before the American courts on Thursday, a week after being ordered to pay $148 million to two assessors Georgia elections that he had defamed.
Mr. Giuliani, spearhead of former President Trump’s campaign to invalidate the results of the 2020 election, filed a petition in Manhattan federal court, under the famous Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy law, declaring $100 to $500 million in debts and $1 to $10 million in assets, according to court documents seen by Agence France-Presse.
Last Friday, a jury in a federal court in the capital, Washington, ordered him to pay $148 million in compensation and moral damages to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Shaye Moss, who worked as Georgia state election officials during the November 2020 presidential election.
The vote was won by Democrat Joe Biden, but the Republican billionaire who dreams of returning to the White House has believed for more than three years that the victory was stolen from him.
Among the creditors listed by Mr. Giuliani in his personal bankruptcy filing are the federal and New York state tax authorities, who are seeking millions of dollars in cumulative debts from him. As well as lawyers, electronic voting machine companies and… President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
“Giuliani’s lies”
Last Friday, Mme Moss had described the “devastating” years experienced by her mother and her due to the “lies of Rudy Giuliani”, a former personal lawyer and very close to Donald Trump.
Based on a video showing the mother and daughter passing an object — which turned out to be a mint lozenge — during the ballot count in Georgia, Mr. Giuliani, 79, a lawyer by training, said that They exchanged a USB key “as if they were doses of heroin or cocaine” to fake the results. The two black women had recounted how these accusations, taken up by Donald Trump on social networks, had earned them a flood of insults and threats, often of a racist nature.
After recognizing in July the falsity of his accusations, Mr. Giuliani affirmed last Friday “to have no doubt that his statements were tenable at the time and still are tenable today”, but said he was prevented from provide proof.
From “America’s Mayor” to Disgraced Lawyer
The former “Mayor of America”, recognized worldwide for his management of the days following the attacks of September 11, 2001 and his role as former anti-mafia prosecutor in New York, has since fallen from grace.
He called the claimed amount of $148 million “absurdity.” So much so that his declaration of bankruptcy “should not be a surprise to anyone,” said his advisor Ted Goodman on Thursday in a press release published on social networks. “No one could reasonably think that Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be able to pay such a punitive sum,” he stressed, assuring that “Chapter 11 [lui] offered the opportunity to appeal” the order to pay $148 million.
A judge also ordered “immediate” payment on Wednesday to prevent the former magistrate from gaining time by hiding his assets, according to local media.
Rudy Giuliani is also being sued by the law firm that represented him for several years, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, which is claiming $1.36 million in unpaid debts. He is also facing civil charges for defamation by the electronic voting machine companies Dominion and Smartmatic and by Hunter Biden for violation of electronic data on his private life. The amounts claimed are “undetermined”.
Rudy Giuliani was criminally charged in August by the Georgia courts, along with Donald Trump and 17 others, for illicit manipulation allegedly aimed at reversing the results of the 2020 election in this key state.
Four of the 19 defendants named in the August indictment, filed under an organized crime law, have pleaded guilty. They were sentenced to reduced sentences, without prison time, in exchange for their testimony at the future trial of the other defendants.