George Santos is very much part of the DWT drama and I admit that I enjoy writing about him and will be sad when he’s out of touch in prison. There’s never too much George Santos. Rudy Giuliani on the other hand… a different kind of drag queen and a lot less interesting. It’s so much more of a chore writing about him. No wonder Santos gets twice as much per Cameo video!
Anyway, yesterday Eileen Sullivan tried answering the question about what comes next now that Giuliani has been ordered to pay Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, around $148 million in damages, $100 million more than they asked for. That’s a combined $75 million in punitive damages; compensatory damages of $16.2 million to Freeman and $16.9 million to Moss; and $20 million to each of them for emotional suffering. He’s appealing the verdict and still insisting they did try to steal the election. We’ll come back to that in a moment.
Sullivan noted that “Before Freeman and Moss can collect any money, the judge, Beryl Howell of the Federal District Court in Washington, will need to enter a judgment ordering the amount Giuliani is required to pay. In civil cases like this one, the judge can change the amount determined by the jury. Once Judge Howell rules on the amount, Giuliani can appeal the decision.”
His attorney will then stall for as long as he can, drawing it out so that Giuliani never has to pay a dime. He’s 79 and Freeman and Moss is likely to out live him. They can collect the money from his estate though. They’ll probably “ask the judge to make him post a bond to secure some of his assets while an appeal is pending. The women can also request a special proceeding to look into ways to collect the judgment from him, such as garnishing his wages. Giuliani… cannot currently work as a lawyer because of disciplinary actions against him. Giuliani refused to comply with the court’s requirement to disclose financial documents that would show his net worth, including how much money he makes from media endeavors such as his podcast. And at any point, Giuliani and Freeman and Moss could agree on a settlement.”
Giuliani will certainly file for bankruptcy protection. But, “the damages he owes Freeman and Moss are considered an ‘intentional tort,’ meaning Giuliani was aware of what he was doing when he defamed the women by spreading baseless lies about election fraud, and bankruptcy would not erase his liability.”
Giuliani is under indictment in Georgia. A local prosecutor brought racketeering charges against him, Trump and others for their efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia.
He faces a defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems, one of the largest voting machine vendors in the country. The company accused Giuliani of spreading lies about the company as part of his efforts to keep Trump in office.
Giuliani’s former lawyer, Robert Costello, is also suing him for $1.3 million in unpaid legal fees. And a former employee, Noelle Dunphy, filed a lawsuit in May, claiming that Giuliani harassed and assaulted her beginning in 2019.
After The Times published Sullivan’s story, NBC news reported that Freeman and Moss are suing him again for continuing to defame them. “The new suit… seeks a court order permanently barring Giuliani ‘from persisting in his defamatory campaign’ against the mother and daughter, arguing that he's continued to falsely accuse them of committing election fraud even after a federal jury handed down last week's verdict in Washington, D.C. The lawsuit notes that Giuliani told reporters after the trial that his long-debunked allegations ‘were supportable and are supportable today.’ He also told Newsmax that ‘he was in possession of video evidence demonstrating the truth of his allegations.’ In Monday's filing, attorneys for Freeman and Moss said they'd asked for Giuliani to stop smearing their clients, and said he would not.” In fact on Monday night he said the court is a “fascist system run by the Biden regime… If I showed you the evidence right now … people would see that what I said was absolutely true and there’s support for it.” After promising to testify, he backed out at the last minute and presented none this “evidence” he keeps yammering about.
They’re not asking for money, just for a judge to order him to stop lying about them and smearing them. On Monday Señor Trumpanzee told reporters ‘I think it’s so sad what’s happened to Rudy. He’s a great patriot. He’s the greatest mayor in the history of New York. I think it’s a very, very unfair situation.’” And then he went back to reading his favorite patriot book.
UPDATE: Rudy Must Pay Up IMMEDIATELY
Rachel Weiner reported today that "Judge Beryl Howell wrote that there is a strong danger Giuliani is likely to hide his assets from plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss and is unlikely to succeed in having last week’s the jury verdict overturned or cut down on appeal." She wrote that he has to pay the full $148 million at once. He'll appeal the ruling.