It's been nearly four years since Rudy Giuliani became the public face of Donald Trump's failed legal efforts to reverse his 2020 presidential election defeat.
Now, in the latest twist stemming from Giuliani's career-ending work for the former Republican president, his $2 million outstanding legal bill to the Trump campaign could be collected by two Georgia poll workers falsely accused of election fraud.
Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea' "Shaye" Moss on Friday said they are entitled to Giuliani's claim to his unpaid Trump fees, as part of their larger effort to collect on a $148 million defamation judgment imposed on Giuliani in December.
"Now that plaintiffs are finally in a position to collect their judgment, the court should not hesitate to employ the enforcement devices available under New York law," Freeman and Moss said in their lawsuit.
Attorneys for Freeman and Moss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman on Friday called Freeman and Moss' $148 million verdict "objectively unreasonable" and slammed their new lawsuit. Goodman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the $2 million fee claim.
Freeman and Moss' lawsuit comes two months after a judge ended Giuliani's bankruptcy, leaving him vulnerable to creditors.
Freeman and Moss were election workers in heavily Democratic Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, where a strong showing by Biden helped give him a narrow Georgia victory.
Trump and his surrogates used surveillance video of the vote count at State Farm Arena to falsely accuse Freeman and Moss of processing "suitcases" full of fake ballots for Biden late at night on Election Day, after most poll workers and election observers left.
Freeman and Moss told Reuters in December 2021 that the accusations had derailed their lives.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., in August 2023 held Giuliani liable for defaming Freeman and Moss as a sanction for failing to turn over electronic records during the litigation, paving the way for the $148 million judgment.
- In other legal news, a Delaware judge who will decide how much to award lawyers who successfully voided Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package received some unsolicited guidance last month from the state's top court: No windfalls.
- A company that defeated a U.S. Federal Trade Commission lawsuit claiming it duped consumers into buying print subscriptions has asked a U.S. judge to award $5.4 million in legal fees for the agency's “dramatic overreach.”
Attorneys for American Future Systems in a court filing on Tuesday said the FTC should be forced to cover legal fees after losing its case following a 15-day trial last year.
- A Washington state appeals court last week ruled that a public school district cannot force its insurer to pay a $1.77 million settlement it struck with a Christian high school football coach whose lawsuit over on-field prayers went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- A Paul Hastings lawyer overseeing the bankruptcy estate of an exiled Chinese businessman convicted of fraud in July has sued U.S. law firm Boies Schiller Flexner in an attempt to recoup money that was allegedly fraudulently transferred to the firm.
Boies Schiller received more than $653,000 in legal fees from a shell company belonging to Guo Wengui, trustee Luc Despins alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday in Connecticut bankruptcy court. The shell company was allegedly used by Guo to dodge his creditors, Despins said.
Boies Schiller had earlier represented Guo, who has several aliases including Ho Wan Kwok, in various legal proceedings and won an arbitration award over its fees.
(Legal Fee Tracker is a weekly feature exploring attorney compensation awards and disputes in class actions, bankruptcies and other matters. Please send tips or suggestions to [email protected].)
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