Rudy Giuliani owes nearly $1.4 million to a law firm that represented him in investigations related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, that firm says in a new lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan state court on Monday, alleges Giuliani agreed to pay over $1.5 million to the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron under a retainer agreement, but has paid only $214,000 to date.
Robert Costello, a partner at the Davidoff firm who is a longtime friend and lawyer to Giuliani, is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Giuliani made a token payment of $10,000 earlier this month — which still leaves a balance of $1,360,196, the complaint claims.
Costello represented Giuliani from 2019 until this summer, the suit says. He advised Giuliani on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, a criminal probe by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, prosecutor Fani Willis’ investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, a Congressional inquiry, attorney disciplinary proceedings that could cost Giuliani his license to practice law, and more than 10 civil lawsuits.
Giuliani and Costello are longtime friends; both were prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York in the 1970s. By the time Giuliani ran for New York City mayor in the 1990s, Costello was a major financial supporter of his campaign, according to the New York Law Journal.
Costello and Giuliani’s advisor Ted Goodman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday evening.
Rudy Giuliani’s money trouble
The case is the latest indication that Giuliani, once a sought-after lawyer, is in desperate need of cash.
Costello went with Giuliani in April to try to convince Trump to pay him, to mixed results, CNN reported last month. More recently, Donald Trump held a $100,000-per-person fundraiser for Giuliani at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club earlier this month, though it’s not clear how much money they raised.
One of Trump’s PAC has also paid $340,000 to a legal records firm that Giuliani owed money to, records show.
Giuliani has told judges he lacks the funds to pay fees for several cases, but has resisted showing financial statements in court and took a private jet to his booking in Georgia. He has even faced sanctions; in one case, brought by two Georgia election workers who Giuliani falsely claimed rigged election results, a judge slapped him with an automatic loss and an additional $132,000 in legal fees after he provided only “a sliver of the financial documents required to be produced” for the lawsuit.
In August, Insider broke the news that Giuliani put his Upper East Side apartment on the market for $6.5 million.
Giuliani is also at risk of being unable to work as a lawyer again. In July, a panel of the DC Bar recommended that Giuliani’s law license be revoked.
Giuliani isn’t the only Trump ally to fail to pay legal fees to Costello. In July, a New York state judge ordered Steve Bannon to pay his firm $500,000 after the former Trump advisor was sued for failing to pay his legal bills in connection with the House January 6 investigation, and with a federal criminal case over his GoFundMe to build a US-Mexico border wall.
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