Rudy Giuliani's Financial Problems Just Got Worse

Rudy Giuliani's financial woes are about to get worse after a federal judge found the former Trump lawyer liable for defaming two election workers in Georgia and ordered him to pay their legal fees.

Judge Beryl Howell ruled against Giuliani on Wednesday in a lawsuit brought by mother and daughter, Ruby Freeman and Shayne Moss, who accused Giuliani of causing emotional and reputational harm as well as endangering their safety after he singled them out in his false claims about ballot tampering in Georgia's 2020 election.

Howell ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss' legal fees and costs. The judge said a trial determining the total amount in damages will be set for later this year or early 2024. Giuliani has already been sanctioned almost $90,000 for the poll workers' attorneys' fees in the case and Howell said there could be additional sanctions.

Those damages will be yet another weight added to Giuliani's "financial difficulties," as his attorneys referred to it in an earlier court filing from the defamation case.

He's reportedly spent millions defending himself in federal and state criminal cases related to his alleged election interference and his home in Manhattan's Upper East Side was recently listed for sale at $6.5 million. A Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund has also been created and an invitation for a September 7 event in Bedminster, New Jersey shows former President Donald Trump headlining an event for the fund. Tickets are $100,000 per person.

Newsweek reached out to Giuliani's attorneys via email for comment.

The announcement of the RICO indictment in Fulton County, Georgia earlier this month had already led to speculations about how financially painful the upcoming trial could be for the 19 named co-defendants, which includes Giuliani and Trump.

Former Trump official Michael Caputo predicted that the mounting legal expense would create a situation for the defendants where they'd lose their homes, pull their kids out of schools and delay any pricey medical care.

Wednesday's order comes after Giuliani conceded to making defamatory statements about Freeman and Moss last month. In a court filing, he said he did not contest their accusations, but that he wanted to argue those remarks were protected free speech. He refused to admit that those comments caused damages to the mother and daughter.

"Defendant Giuliani, for the purposes of litigation only, does not contest that, to the extent the statements were statements of fact and other wise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false," Giuliani wrote, adding that the concession was intended to help him "avoid unnecessary expenses in litigating what he believes to be unnecessary disputes."

After the election, Giuliani had claimed that Freeman and Moss were "passing around USB ports like they were vials of heroin or cocaine," when they were actually passing a ginger mint, according to a report from the House investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.

"There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere," Freeman told the panel in a videotaped testimony last year. Moss added that the pair has avoided going anywhere, saying even at the grocery store, she's faced threats "wishing death upon me, telling me that you know, I'll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, 'Be glad it's 2020 and not 1920.'"

Update 09/04/2023 6:51 a.m. ET: This story has been updated for clarity.