Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy protection, a day after being ordered to pay $148 million immediately to two former Georgia election workers who sued him for defamation while he was a lawyer for former President Donald Trump.
Mr. Giuliani listed liabilities of $100 million to $500 million and assets of as much as $10 million, according to a bankruptcy form that was filed on Dec. 21 at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and obtained by The Epoch Times.
While the values of some of Mr. Giuliani’s debts were listed as “unknown,” the biggest specified liability is the $148 million a federal jury last week ordered him to pay to Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, the two former Georgia election workers.
Other creditors listed in Mr. Giuliani’s bankruptcy filing include the IRS and the New York State Department of Taxation, with his total liabilities owed to the government totaling nearly $1 million.
A day before Mr. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy, a federal judge ordered that the former New York City mayor must pay the two former election workers $148 million immediately.
The payout demanded by the judge stems from a lawsuit in which Mr. Giuliani was accused of defaming the two former election workers with false accusations that they committed voter fraud while counting ballots in Georgia’s Fulton County in the 2020 presidential election.
Mr. Giuliani’s attorneys didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the circumstances of the bankruptcy filing and whether he plans to appeal the judgment in the defamation case.
Immediate Enforcement
In a ruling handed down on Dec. 20, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell backed a request by the two former election workers, who contended that Mr. Giuliani lacked the financial means to pay them after a 30-day delay on the payouts was lifted.The judge said Mr. Giuliani has“proven himself to be an unwilling and uncooperative litigant.”
“Second, as plaintiffs submit and as Giuliani does not contest, ‘Giuliani has numerous and mounting debts, including to his own attorneys and other litigants seeking to reduce their claims to judgment,’” the judge wrote.
Noting the mounting number of legal battles that Mr. Giuliani and his businesses are currently facing, Judge Howell wrote that the potentially competing claims to his assets “raise the risk that Giuliani has even greater motivation to hide his financial assets from potential future judgments against him.”
The two election workers claimed they were subjected to relentless abuse after they were identified in a video clip that became widely circulated after the 2020 general election. In it, they are seen allegedly mishandling ballots.
However, an investigation by the Georgia Elections Board cleared Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss of any wrongdoing.
The women testified at trial that Mr. Giuliani made allegations against them and intended to cause them harm. The two also claimed they had received death threats and suffered emotional harm as a result of his claims.
Mr. Giuliani’s attorney, Joseph Sibley, told the court last week that the multimillion-dollar payout would spell “the end” for his client and that it would be “the civil equivalent of a death penalty.”
Mr. Giuliani has backed his claims about the former election workers and told reporters on Dec. 11—the day the defamation damages trial began—that “everything I said about them is true.”
Financial Woes
In September, Mr. Giuliani’s former lawyers sued him over allegations that he failed to pay roughly $1.36 million in legal fees. Mr. Giuliani has said he believes the amount being sought is too much.Besides financial difficulties, Mr. Giuliani also is among the 19 individuals, including President Trump, indicted by a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, in connection to their efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.
