By David Thomas (Reuters) -Rudy Giuliani must pay his former attorneys $1.36 million in unpaid legal fees plus interest for their work defending the former New York mayor in connection with his actions as U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, a judge ruled on Tuesday. New York County Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled in […]
Politics
Rudy Giuliani must pay his defense lawyers $1.4 million, judge rules
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By David Thomas
(Reuters) -Rudy Giuliani must pay his former attorneys $1.36 million in unpaid legal fees plus interest for their work defending the former New York mayor in connection with his actions as U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, a judge ruled on Tuesday.
New York County Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled in Manhattan in favor of law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron in the lawsuit it filed in 2023 against Giuliani seeking to collect fees for work performed for him between November 2019 and July 2023.
A spokesperson for Giuliani and a lawyer for the Davidoff firm did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Robert Costello, a partner at the firm, represented Giuliani in federal and state investigations into Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, an investigation into Giuliani’s business and political activities in Ukraine, and a U.S. congressional panel’s inquiry into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, according to the lawsuit.
The Davidoff firm said in the lawsuit that it also helped coordinate Giuliani’s defense in other civil lawsuits and attorney disciplinary proceedings. The firm said Giuliani had paid only $214,000 of nearly $1.6 million in legal expenses.
Giuliani had argued that he had no retainer agreement with the Davidoff firm, just with Costello. Giuliani also said he never agreed to pay the firm’s hourly rates, and that he did not receive monthly invoices from the firm.
Giuliani, the former top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, has since been stripped of his law license in New York and Washington over baseless election fraud claims he made.
He also reached a settlement this year with two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him for falsely claiming they helped steal the 2020 election from Trump.
Giuliani has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in Arizona and Georgia over his efforts to overturn Trump’s election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. He also is fighting a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against him by Dominion Voting Systems alleging that he spread false claims about the company following the 2020 election.
Trump this month said he plans to award Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom, considered the highest U.S. civilian honor.
(Reporting by David Thomas in Chicago; Editing by Will Dunham)