Rudy Giuliani begs bankruptcy court to let him keep his Florida condo to continue podcasting
Rudy Giuliani hasasked a bankruptcy court to let him keep his Florida condo as he fights off paying two election workers he defamed, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
lawandcrime.com
Rudy Giuliani begs bankruptcy court to let him keep his Florida condo so he can keep podcasting to pay creditors
BRANDI BUCHMANMar 29th, 2024, 12:30 pm
Rudy Giuliani is interviewed on September 9, 2022 about the September 11th 2001 (9/11/01) terror attacks in New York City (NYC). (File Photo by: zz/John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx 2022 9/9/22.)
When Rudy Giuliani defamed two poll workers with bunk allegations of election fraud in 2020, it triggered a wave of threats so acute, one of the workers was forced to flee her longtime home in Georgia. Now, the ally to former President Donald Trump — and his co-defendant in the racketeering case in Fulton County — is experiencing some domicile difficulties of his own.
In a motion filed Thursday, Giuliani, who owes election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss $148 million for defaming them, asked a bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York to let him keep his Florida condominium, valued at $3.5 million, as he fights the judgment on appeal.
The former New York mayor’s attorneys wrote in the 12-page motion that the recommendation by the Committee on Unsecured Creditors that he sell the home since declaring bankruptcy was premature.
“It appears that the Committee is assuming that most if not all of the Freeman judgment will survive on appeal, and is proceeding as if all of the Debtor’s assets need to be liquidated now to satisfy a potentially inflated claim. The debtor could be irreparably harmed if the Florida residence is sold and later it turns out that the Freeman judgment is vacated,” the instant motion states.
The committee told him there was “no legal basis” for him to keep the property.
Giuliani does not oppose the sale of his property in Manhattan, however. That property could be sold so he could make his primary residence in Florida, he contends. His lawyers noted that the New York property is expected to be listed by Sotheby’s soon for $5 million.
With that home sold, Giuliani said he expects “his monthly expenses will be significantly reduced.”
Though he claims creditors are accusing him of operating with “reckless abandon and improper judgment” in his attempt to hold onto the Florida property, Giuliani says he is “using sound business judgment” by acknowledging that one property must be sold while he keeps the other to “grow his broadcast income,” the motion states.
Debtors should not be forced to sell property where there is a “valid business justification,” he argues.
And as bankruptcy proceedings have been underway in recent weeks, Giuliani has emphasized repeatedly that his income flows from those broadcasting and podcasting businesses. As Law&Crime previously reported, the podcasts include Common Sense, which is distributed through YouTube, Rumble and Spike, as well as Uncovering the Truth, and The Rudy Giuliani Show. Giuliani streams those podcasts live on Instagram.
“Once the New York apartment is sold, the debtor will need a place to operate the Podcast from if he is to earn any money therefrom, the only remaining location would be from the Florida Condominium. The debtor is actually saving money as he does not need to pay for and maintain both a Podcast studio and his residence in both New York City and Florida,” his attorneys wrote.
In fact, they added, it was that income, and whatever future income he may earn, that would “only serve to benefit creditors.”
How profitable those future podcasts may be could be a bit unpredictable. Giuliani is still working to remain relevant on right-wing sites, though. To wit, on Thursday night during an appearance on the Rob Schmitt Tonight program for Newsmax, Giuliani railed about the judge overseeing Trump’s defamation case with writer E. Jean Carroll. He called the judge a “disgrace” and continued with his take on the judge’s findings.
“[Trump] was found not liable for rape,” he said. “It was sexual assault. Not rape. And second, you can be guilty of rape and still a person could be a whacko. That was the defamation — you’re allowed to defend yourself against defamation.”
Carroll claimed Trump raped and sexually assaulted her in a dressing room in the 1990s and at trial, she said he used both his fingers and penis to do so. The jury found he had only used his fingers, causing both immediate pain as well as long-lasting emotional psychological harm, as Law&Crime previously reported, but presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan explained even though jurors had not found Trump “raped” her under the technical definition — New York state law limits rape to the insertion of the penis into a person’s vagina — it “does not mean that she failed to prove Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.'”
“Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that,” Lewis wrote.
The “whacko” reference by Giuliani echoes similar commentary Trump used to describe Carroll in a 2022 deposition when he called her a “whack job” and “sick.” That deposition was played for jurors at the this year defamation trial and when asked by attorneys if he stood behind it in 2024, Trump replied: “100%.”
A spokesperson for Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
