Rudy Giuliani on Monday resisted demands of creditors to appoint a trustee that would take control of his finances during the Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, claiming that he “does not intend to hide assets or mislead anyone” and denying that he has committed “bankruptcy crimes.”
The filing in opposition to the appointment of a trustee, submitted by attorneys Gary Fischoff and Joan Keely, also claimed that the 80-year-old former mayor of New York City is “suffering” from a “lung disease” possibly linked to 9/11.
Giuliani asserted that attorneys for creditors Dominion Voting Systems, defamed Georgia election worker Shaye Moss, and former employee Noelle Dunphy, who accused him of sexual assault, were wrong to allege possible “bankruptcy crimes” in their pursuit of a trustee’s appointment.
While attorneys with the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors claimed Giuliani might be “funneling funds that belong to his creditors to his business and using his business as a personal piggy bank, which is fraudulent,” Giuliani says nothing unusual is afoot.
“The motion should be denied,” Giuliani’s lawyers said, because “operating through an alter ego LLC is usual and customary and is not fraud or deceit[.]”
“Currently the Debtor is employed by Giuliani Communications, LLC, the Debtor’s wholly owned operating entity,” the filing said, adding that Giuliani has “always done business through various entities — recently through the Giuliani Communications company.”
“His gross income for his services are deposited into the entity” and are used to pay his employees and business expenses before the net funds are paid to him personally, Giuliani’s lawyers added.
Describing his earnings as “modest,” Giuliani’s attorneys dismissed allegations of “potential bankruptcy crimes” and asserted that Giuliani “has always been fully transparent and open about his finances.”
Creditors have expressed a starkly different view, however. Their attorneys have said multiple “facts” left them no choice but to demand the appointment of a trustee that would “take control of the Debtor’s assets and financial affairs, including those of his wholly-owned businesses.”
“Here, the facts compel the appointment of a trustee for cause, including (i) dishonesty, (ii) incompetence, (iii) gross mismanagement of the Debtor’s affairs, (iv) inadequate record-keeping and reporting, (v) inappropriate relations between the Debtor and his wholly-owned businesses, (vi) conflicts of interest and (vii) breach of fiduciary duty,” their motion said, demanding a trustee that would manage and oversee “all day-to-day operations” of Giuliani’s businesses.
Giuliani has countered that claims of “bankruptcy fraud” are a “stretch of facts and not supported by the common sense observation of the facts.”
“There is nothing new or unusual about the manner in which the Debtor operates,” the Giuliani filing said. “He has always used the income he generates to pay business expenses and then use any remainder to cover personal expenses. The mere fact that at the conclusion of most months, the gross revenue received does not exceed the expenses — and hence no personal income to the Debtor — is not, as portrayed by the committee, a scheme to defraud creditors.”
Giuliani’s lawyers also ridiculed the notion that his business practices are “perplexing.”
“Do the partners in Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP ask their clients to write checks to them personally or checks payable to the firm?!” Giuliani’s team asked creditors’ lawyers.
Giuliani has asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane not to appoint a trustee, even though the judge went so far as to say in recent weeks that he was “disturbed about the status of this case” and dismayed by the former NYC mayor’s “troubling attitude vis-à-vis the law and the court system.”
The debtor argued that Lane should at least set an evidentiary hearing.
Also of note from the opposition filing was the claim that Giuliani may have a “lung disease” attributable to 9/11.
Giuliani was, of course, the mayor of New York City on 9/11 and was a “frequent visitor” at ground zero in the days after terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, as the New York Times reported in 2007.
In that same article, the Times noted that Giuliani had said his presence at ground zero put him at risk of “every health consequence that people have suffered.”
Beyond saying that it’s “possible” Giuliani’s “lung disease” stems from 9/11, the filing did not elaborate further.
Giuliani’s penchant for cigar smoking has also been well-chronicled over the decades.
In 1999, for example, former WWE CEO Vince McMahon counted Giuliani among “The Top 100 Cigar Smokers of the Twentieth Century” in a Cigar Aficionado article.
“The former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has a sophisticated palate for cigars, preferring full-bodied smokes from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. He came upon his predilections after having been tutored in cigars by Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, maker of La Gloria Cubana,” McMahon wrote at the time. “He is a frequent guest at Cigar Aficionado Big Smokes and enjoys cigars late at night.”
Also on Monday, Giuliani appeared in Arizona to be booked in his Maricopa County-based fake electors felony indictment.
Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani and the producer of his “America’s Mayor Live” podcast, said in a statement that the Arizona case is “yet another example of partisan actors weaponizing the criminal justice system to interfere with the 2024 presidential election through outlandish charges against President Trump and anyone willing to take on the permanent Washington political class.”
“Joe Biden and his allies continue to eviscerate the trust and integrity of our criminal justice system in their quest to take down President Trump and hold on to power,” Goodman said. “Mayor Rudy Giuliani—the most effective federal prosecutor in U.S. history—will be fully vindicated.”
Giuliani has pleaded not guilty.
The post Rudy Giuliani resists appointment of financial watchdog, claims ‘possible’ 9/11-linked ‘disease,’ and denies committing ‘bankruptcy crimes’ first appeared on Law & Crime.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Matt Naham
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://lawandcrime.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.