Former President Donald Trump's longtime ally Rudy Giuliani was scorched in a new filing by creditors over tactics he used to try to game the bankruptcy system.
"Since day one, Giuliani has regarded this case and the bankruptcy process as a joke, hiding behind the façade of an elderly, doddering man who cannot even remember the address for his second multimillion dollar home and claims impending homelessness if he must sell that second multimillion dollar home," wrote the creditors in their filing. "In reality, Giuliani has treated this Court, the bankruptcy process and the Committee the same way he treated the D.C. District Court and the Freeman Plaintiffs in the Freeman Litigation, with utter disrespect and without accountability."
Giuliani, who previously served as a federal prosecutor and a mayor of New York City, moved to declare bankruptcy after he was found liable for $148 million by default in a defamation case brought by a pair of Atlanta election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Giuliani baselessly accused the two of stuffing ballots in 2020. Even by that point, Giuliani was strapped for cash amid a flurry of legal problems, and since then he has lost more income after being fired from talk radio for continuing to push election conspiracy theories.
The creditors went on to claim that Giuliani's "duplicitous conduct" and "disgraceful behavior" included filing nonsensical arguments to try to convert his Chapter 11 bankruptcy into Chapter 7. Chapter 11 is a "reorganization" bankruptcy, whereas Chapter 7 is a "liquidation" bankruptcy; the latter doesn't require a creditor repayment plan.
"Given Giuliani’s disgraceful behavior in this bankruptcy case, preceded by his disgraceful behavior in the Freeman Litigation, it comes as no surprise that Giuliani was recently disbarred in New York," said the filing. "The New York Supreme Court’s decision on Giuliani’s disbarment just as easily could have been written about Giuliani and this bankruptcy case. This chicanery is what he does and who he is."
"The few sentences composing the entirety of the Conversion Application include the Debtor’s 'wish' to convert his chapter 11 case to a case under chapter 7," the filing stated in its objection. "Unfortunately for the Debtor, this bankruptcy case is not a Disney movie, and the Debtor’s wish is not this Court’s command."
