Giuliani puts up $5.7 million NYC penthouse to move bankruptcy case to an end

NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani agreed Wednesday to settle outstanding fees he owes to financial investigators with profits from the sale of his multimillion-dollar Manhattan penthouse or his Palm Beach condo to bring an end to his tortured bankruptcy case.

The case was set to be dismissed — without paying off his creditors — until the judge last week slammed on the brakes, threatening Giuliani with a possible grilling about his finances under oath unless he resolved the outstanding fees.

Instead, Giuliani has agreed to park $100,000 in escrow for Global Data Risk LLC, the forensic accounting firm his creditors retained on his dime with a judge’s approval.

The proposed agreement, which the court must approve, says he’ll satisfy the remainder of the debt with proceeds from whichever property he sells first — his $5.7 million Upper East Side E. 66th St. apartment, which he put on the market last year, or his Florida condo, valued at around $3.5 million, which is not currently for sale.

The cash-strapped ex-lawyer for former President Donald Trump filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December after a Washington, D.C., jury determined he owed Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss around $148 million for baselessly accusing them of committing ballot fraud during the 2020 presidential election in a fictional plot to win President Biden the White House. He listed his existing debts at over $150 million and up to $10 million in assets.

Earlier this month, White Plains federal bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said he would dismiss the case after all sides agreed to it. In his decision, he said Giuliani had failed to provide an accurate and complete picture of his financial affairs as ordered by the court.

But in a written order July 25, the judge said he would consider reversing course and refuse to finalize the dismissal order amid Giuliani’s unwillingness to settle around $400,000 in outstanding fees owed to the financial investigators hired by his creditors, who accused him of disguising the true state of his finances.

“With no resolution on the horizon here,” Lane said he’d be forced to determine how the fees would get paid at an evidentiary hearing, possibly including a grilling in the witness box for Giuliani.

He gave the parties until noon Wednesday to propose an alternative.

“What little we know about (Giuliani’s) financial situation makes his stance here more troubling,” Lane wrote on July 25. “Even assuming that (Giuliani) does not have the funds on hand to immediately pay these bankruptcy expenses, he certainly has considerable assets upon which he can draw to pay such expenses.”

The yet-to-be-approved order says the accounting firm will be granted liens on Giuliani’s properties as a precaution that will not be enforced for at least six months if he fails to cough up the cash.

When the bankruptcy case is formally dismissed, Freeman and Moss can take action to enforce the eye-popping judgment awarded to them, and the unsecured creditors suing Giuliani for wide-ranging claims can proceed with their cases that were frozen when he filed for bankruptcy. Giuliani plans to appeal the verdict in the elections workers case.

Those suits include claims brought by Giuliani’s former assistant, Noelle Dunphy, who’s suing him for sexual assault and harassment; Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, concerning the laptop saga; Daniel Gill, a fired Staten Island supermarket worker who says Giuliani framed him for assault; voting machine companies Dominion and Smartmatic, who say Giuliani defamed them as trying to rig the last presidential election; several law firms, the IRS and New York tax authorities.

As he submerges ever deeper into debt, Giuliani, 80, also faces criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona related to his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election results, to which he’s pleaded not guilty. He was barred from practicing law in New York on Jul. 2 for repeatedly lying about the last presidential election.

Lawyers for Freeman and Moss did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment, nor did Giuliani, his bankruptcy attorneys or his spokesperson.

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