What is Rudy Giuliani’s net worth? Why did he have to file for bankruptcy?
A Washington DC jury awarded $148 million to two election workers whose lives were upended by lies Rudy Giuliani spread about them. Does he have the money?
A number of lawsuits are working their way through the courts to hold those responsible for the harm they caused by spreading conspiracy theories and lies about fraud in the 2020 election. On Friday, a jury in Washington DC awarded two of those victims a colossal multimillion dollar compensation to be paid by Rudy Giuliani.
The former mayor of New York City, who served as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, falsely claimed that two Georgia elections workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, tampered with the ballot count in Fulton County. The accusations, echoed by the former president, resulted in the two receiving death threats, Trump supporters showing up at their houses, along with those of their family members, and forced them to go into hiding.
The very real world harm and pain inflicted by Giuliani’s defamation on the two led the eight member jury to award Shaye and Lady Ruby $148 million in damages. However, there are doubts about how much of that money the two will receive. “The verdict is in on what he owes Ruby and Shaye, but the jury is out on what he has,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney, John Langford, on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight.
What is Rudy Giuliani’s net worth? Why did he have to file for bankruptcy?
During the civil defamation lawsuit, the legal team led by Langford sought all information on the financial standing of Guiliani but were provided with almost nothing the lawyer said. The man once known as “America’s mayor,” despite lucrative business dealings in the past, appears to be in financial straits.
He is being sued by his former lawyer Robert Costello, who represented him in probes by federal and state as well as civil lawsuits and attorney disciplinary proceedings, for nearly $1.4 million in unpaid legal fees racked up between November 2019 and July 2023. The New York Times reported that he owes almost $3 million in legal expenses, which can be expected to rise as he faces criminal charges for his role in the overturning the legitimate 2020 election results in Georgia and more civil lawsuits related to propagating the ‘Big Lie’.
Giuliani’s attorney Joe Sibley told the jury this week that the financial damages being sought by Moss and Ruby of over $48 million, as well as punitive damages, would be the “civil equivalent of the death penalty” and “the end” of Giuliani financially. Based solely on that one could assume that his net worth is around that amount or less.
Recently, he has taken to selling off assets and for a while he was selling video messages on Cameo. He also put his luxury apartment in Manhattan up for sale in July, listing the selling price at $6.5 million.
According to the New York Times, he earns roughly $400,000 a year from a radio show on WABC along with income from a podcast and livestream broadcast he hosts. People close to him told the newspaper that his revenue from these sources are nowhere near enough to cover his debts.
When Giuliani was running for president in the 2008 race, CNN looked at his net wealth at the time. It put the wealth of the former mayor, who was still riding high, at over $52 million. His income in 2006 was estimated at $17 million, the majority of which came from speaking fees in addition to legal work and lobbying. However, he is currently fighting to keep his law license in DC and in 2021 his New York law license was suspended.
So, that’s why the former New York mayor was forced to declare bankruptcy as he didn’t have close to enough money to pay the $148 million to Georgia poll workers.