A New York bankruptcy judge on Friday approved a deal that would dismiss Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to secure bankruptcy protections, putting two former election workers he repeatedly defamed after the 2020 race closer to collecting on their $146 million verdict against him.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Sean Lane of the Southern District of New York had initially ruled last month that he would dismiss Giuliani's case, but said last week he might have to reconsider doing so because of the former New York City mayor's failure to pay about $400,000 in administrative and accounting expenses in the case.
The former personal lawyer to Donald Trump reached an agreement with his creditors this past week to pay $100,000 of those expenses now, with the rest of the cash to be paid when he sells one of his homes in New York or Florida. If that does not happen within the next six months, action can be taken to collect on the rest of the money, according to the agreement.
The judge signed off on the deal Friday.
Lane’s order gives Giuliani one business day after the ruling to pay the $100,000, at which point the case will be officially dismissed. The ruling also bars Giuliani from filing for bankruptcy again for a period of one year.The bankruptcy filing had enabled Giuliani to get protection from creditors under the “automatic stay” feature of federal bankruptcy law, which, with some exceptions, halts ongoing litigation as well as the enforcement of pre-existing judgments.
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Giuliani sought bankruptcy protections just days after he was hit with a $148 million defamation verdict in December for his repeated false claims that then-Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss had engaged in election fraud. A judge later reduced the award by $2 million.
Lane said in July he would dismiss the bankruptcy case, citing Giuliani's failure to turn over virtually any necessary information about his businesses, while submitting incomplete or incorrect information about his personal spending.
“The lack of financial transparency is particularly troubling," Lane wrote last month.
A spokesman for Giuliani said at the time that Giuliani wanted the case done with because it was preventing him from appealing the Freeman verdict and subjecting him to "voluminous and overly broad discovery requests."
The spokesman, Ted Goodman, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night, nor did attorneys for Freeman and Moss.
When Lane first said last month that he was dismissing the case, Freeman and Moss attorney Rachel Strickland said Giuliani had filed his bankruptcy petition “in bad faith,” and dismissal would mean that the mother and daughter “can begin to exercise their judgment and make Rudy pay for his malicious lies.”
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