Giuliani’s Spending: $43,000 a Month and a Lot of
Credit Card Bills
Rudy Giuliani promised a bankruptcy court that he
would limit his spending, but it didn’t take long before he broke that pledge,
and by a lot.
Eileen
Sullivan
By Eileen
Sullivan
May 1, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/us/politics/bankruptcy-giuliani-spending.html
Besieged by
creditors and with his income drying up, Rudolph W. Giuliani laid out an
austerity program of sorts in January for a federal bankruptcy court.
He would
stick to a $43,000-a-month budget, he said in court filings, roughly in line
with the income he drew from his retirement accounts and Social Security. That
amount would cover, among other expenses, $5,000 in alimony payments to his
ex-wife Judith Giuliani, $1,050 for food and housekeeping supplies and $425 for
“personal care products and services.” He was also obliged to cover $13,500 in
monthly nursing-home expenses for his former mother-in-law; she died in March.
Suggesting
that he was mindful of the $153 million he owes to creditors, including two
Georgia election workers he defamed in the aftermath of the 2020 election, he
budgeted nothing for entertainment, clubs and subscriptions.
It did not
take him long to blow his budget. In another bankruptcy filing, he said he
actually spent nearly $120,000 in January. The accounting of his spending that
he provided to the court was spotty and incomplete. He later provided more
information to the creditors’ lawyers, listing 60 transactions on Amazon,
multiple entertainment subscriptions, various Apple services and products, Uber
rides and payment of some of his business partner’s personal credit card bill.
It is not
clear whether he has pared back his spending to within his budget in the months
since January, because he has failed to submit required disclosures to the
bankruptcy court. But his spending, and his inability or unwillingness to give
the bankruptcy court a fuller look at his financial status, have left his
creditors suspicious and angry.
“These
superfluous court filings are simply part of a larger effort to bully and
intimidate the mayor through lawfare and a public smear campaign,” Mr.
Giuliani’s spokesman, Ted Goodman, said.
Once the
mayor of New York City and later the personal lawyer to former President Donald
J. Trump, Mr. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in December after a federal judge
ordered him to pay $148 million to the two Georgia election workers for falsely
accusing them of rigging the outcome in President Biden’s favor. (Mr. Giuliani
plans to appeal that judgment.)
His filing
listed $11 million in assets, including his Upper East Side apartment, which he
put on the market last year for $6.5 million, took off the market this winter
and plans to re-list, and his condo in Palm Beach, Fla., which he valued at
$3.5 million.
Months into
the bankruptcy proceedings, Mr. Giuliani’s financial disclosures have been
incomplete, inaccurate and in some cases completely absent. His creditors have
asked for more details and clarifications, hired a forensic accounting firm and
made a broad request for information to see if he is hiding money and assets.
The
creditors’ lawyers recently issued a slew of subpoenas for documents,
communications and information to Mr. Giuliani, people who work or have worked
for him and even his son.
Every
additional penny that can be found in Mr. Giuliani’s pocket means a larger
payout for his creditors, even if it is far less than what he actually owes
them.
That is why
they also want him to collect $2 million that Mr. Giuliani claims he is owed in
legal fees from Mr. Trump for the work he did leading the effort to overturn
the 2020 election results.
Mr.
Giuliani lived a fairly frugal life during his mob-busting prosecutor and
mayoral days.
“Giuliani
and money is a story in and of itself,” said Andrew Kirtzman, who wrote two
books on the former mayor. “It begins with him leading a very unpretentious
life.”
But after
leaving office, Mr. Giuliani began living a very different life, flying on
private Gulfstream jets during the lucrative years of his private consulting
and investment advisory businesses.
In 2007,
when he was running for the Republican presidential nomination, he disclosed
that his net worth was more than $30 million. A decade later, he and Judith
Giuliani were spending $230,000 a month on their lavish lifestyle, including
$7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars.
These days,
Mr. Giuliani brings in about $550,000 a year through disbursements from his
dwindling retirement accounts and Social Security. His creditors want him to
sell his properties in New York and Florida. But Mr. Giuliani recently told the
bankruptcy court he would like to keep the Florida condo and live in it,
suggesting that his creditors would not want him to be homeless.
His
creditors are skeptical.
“It seems
hardly worth pointing out that there is a vast gulf of housing options
available between residing in an approximately $3.5 million Palm Beach
condominium and homelessness,” lawyers for the creditors wrote in a court
filing.
His
creditors also do not trust that he is being honest about the assets he does
disclose.
For
example, Mr. Giuliani lists among his assets an undisclosed number of shares in
Uber, the ride-share service. He declared that he has $30,000 worth of jewelry,
but that includes three World Series rings from the New York Yankees that
creditors estimate are worth about $15,000 each.
He also
failed to disclose a publishing contract for his upcoming book, “The Biden
Crime Family.”
“As my
mother would say, they don’t trust Giuliani as far as they could throw him,”
Bruce A. Markell, a bankruptcy law professor at Northwestern’s Pritzker law
school, said of the creditors, based on the actions they have taken in
bankruptcy court so far.
His
spending report for January was incomplete, with a list of two dozen charges to
his American Express card, but no details. Lawyers for the creditors say he
provided them a more detailed account, but it was not filed publicly in the
court, as missing details typically are. And as of April 26, Mr. Giuliani had
not provided details for his Discover card charges in January. The U.S. trustee
assigned to his case did not respond to a question about why the additional
details were not filed publicly in the court.
One of the
two Georgia election workers he defamed, Shaye Moss, was selected by Mr.
Giuliani’s creditors to serve on a three-person committee to represent their
interests throughout the bankruptcy case.
The other
committee members are Noelle Dunphy, a former employee who claims that Mr.
Giuliani harassed and assaulted her beginning in 2019; and Lindsey Kurtz, the
general counsel at Dominion Voting Systems, one of the largest voting machine
vendors in the country, which has accused Mr. Giuliani of peddling falsehoods
about it after the 2020 election.
“The
committee has no intention of letting the debtor drive his case and the
creditors off a cliff,” the lawyers wrote in a recent motion.
Mr.
Giuliani entered his bankruptcy proceedings with a poor track record responding
to discovery requests. Last year, a federal judge told jurors he intentionally
hid information about his finances to shield his assets and make his net worth
seem smaller.
In
bankruptcy, the debtor has an obligation to disclose all of his assets in such
a way that his creditors can understand what he has and the transactions he is
making, Professor Markell said. Incomplete filings and failing to file
requested material could end with the case being dismissed, which would open a
debtor to foreclosures and collections.
“The more
there is a pushback and an ignorance of the ability to comply — especially from
someone like Giuliani, who is a lawyer — the more concern there is that there
is actually something being hidden,” the professor said.
Mr.
Giuliani has missed the filing deadlines for his February and March spending
reports. Weeks ago, one of Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers, Gary C. Fischoff, said some
filings have been delayed because “the accountant got upset at one point and
wanted out.”
“He’s
calmed down,” the lawyer added, “and we persuaded him to stick with the case.”
Mr. Giuliani’s accountants did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr.
Giuliani’s unresponsiveness, the creditors said, “leads one to question what he
is hiding.”
Bankruptcy
law allows creditors to get even older information from the debtor as well as
from his associates. Mr. Giuliani’s creditors have asked the court to use this
broad discovery request to obtain details about his finances going back to
2019, as well as information from his associates.
This
request could unearth details about Mr. Giuliani’s foreign work, which has
previously drawn scrutiny from the F.B.I. The forensic accounting team hired by
the creditors comprises former intelligence officials with experience in
countries where Mr. Giuliani did business, such as Ukraine, Turkey, Venezuela
and Qatar.
Mr.
Giuliani’s age presents its own challenge to creditors getting paid.
His
circumstance differs from that of Alex Jones, 50, the bankrupt Infowars
conspiracy broadcaster. Depending on the outcome of upcoming bankruptcy talks,
Mr. Jones could work for decades to pay hefty damages to families of the Sandy
Hook shooting victims for spreading lies about them. Mr. Giuliani turns 80 in
May, and his future potential income is hampered by suspended law licenses in
New York and Washington, D.C.
The
financial statements he filed in the court show he is losing money on his
revenue-making businesses, such as his WABC radio show in New York.
Mr.
Giuliani continues to need lawyers in and out of bankruptcy court where he
faces additional lawsuits, including a criminal indictment in Georgia for his
and others’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. And he
was recently indicted in Arizona, where he and others are also accused of
trying to change the 2020 results.
Friends
have set up two legal defense funds. One is a political action committee, and
donors include Elizabeth Ailes, the wife of the late media mogul Roger E.
Ailes; Arnold Gumowitz, a New York real estate developer; and James Liautaud,
the founder of the sandwich chain Jimmy John’s. Another donor is Matthew
Martorano, a Puerto Rico-based businessman who is a defendant in a federal
fraud case.
The other
fund, the Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund, does not disclose the donors or the
amount raised.
According
to a court filing, as of the end of January, Mr. Giuliani had drawn more than
$1.2 million from the two funds to pay his lawyers. The total amount raised
from both funds has not been publicly disclosed.
His
creditors’ lawyers have issued subpoenas for the names of the donors to his
defense funds and receipts.
Eileen
Sullivan covers breaking news, the Justice Department, the trials against
Donald J. Trump and the Biden administration. More about
Eileen Sullivan
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