A federal judge in New York dismissed Rudy Giuliani‘s bankruptcy case just seven months after the former New York City mayor first began to pursue bankruptcy protection after being ordered to pay millions in a defamation case.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in the Southern District of New York claimed Giuliani was using the legal proceedings to avoid paying election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss the $148 million claim allotted to them in a defamation lawsuit.
The former mayor had wrongfully accused the two women of helping to steal the 2020 presidential election from former President Donald Trump.
Now Freeman, Moss, and other creditors are able to pursue legal action to collect their money. Also, all pending lawsuits against Giuliani that were put on hold because of the proceedings are now resumed. Giuliani faces a couple of more defamation suits against him by voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, as well as a sexual harassment claim by former associate Nicole Dunphy.
Over the course of the proceedings, Giuliani did not give the judge an accurate presentation of his financial assets and income, having blown off court deadlines and filing incomplete monthly financial disclosures.
Giuliani listed that he has $153 million in debt, including $3.7 million in legal fees and more than $1 million in state and federal taxes. The financial disclosure found that he had less than $100,000 in the bank at the end of May and was living off of a retirement account. However, he failed to include what his net worth was and also financial information about his businesses.
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With suspicions that Trump’s former lawyer was hiding assets, creditors’ lawyers subpoenaed My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, who had done business with Giuliani, in an effort to get a better understanding of the scope of Giulani’s assets.
“Since day one, Giuliani has regarded this case and the bankruptcy process as a joke, hiding behind the facade of an elderly, doddering man who cannot even remember the address for his second multimillion dollar home and claims impending homelessness if he must sell that second multimillion dollar home,” Philip C. Dublin, an attorney for the committee of creditors, wrote in a July 8 court filing that accused Giuliani of treating the bankruptcy process “with utter disrespect and without accountability.”
