As Rudy Giuliani has been hit by a barrage of financial woes as the former Trump lawyer juggles numerous legal battles, he could be hit by yet another: his sexual assault accuser is now seeking financial sanctions against him.
Mr Giuliani tweeted on 22 August, “Friends of the Mayor set up a fund. Monies raised goes to legal defence. As you know the radical left want to silence the Mayor because he is getting information to you!” He included an address in Palm Beach where people can send checks.
The website for the “Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund” says, “the swamp is revolting by placing a bull’s eye on the backs of every Trump loyalist who had the guts to challenge the Deep State. That puts Rudy at the top of their list.”
It continues, “Rudy’s fate will determine if America still is a Republic governed by We The People, or if the swamp has finally amassed total control of our great country. That’s why Rudy urgently needs YOUR help as he battles for his freedom and justice.”
Mr Giuliani is also selling his Upper East Side apartment, where the alleged assault against Noelle Dunphy took place, for $6.5m earlier this month.
Meanwhile, on 1 August, Ms Dunphy, a former employee of Mr Giuliani who sued the former Trump ally for $10m for sexual assault and harassment, asked for financial sanctions: “Ms. Dunphy is forced to bring this motion because Giuliani and the corporate Defendants repeatedly lied to the Court in their pending motion to strike certain allegations from Ms. Dunphy’s Verified Complaint.”
Ms Dunphy’s lawyers accuse the defendants of engaging in “at least two forms of frivolous and sanctionable misconduct, as laid out by New York Code, Rules, and Regulations Part 130.”
The motion said that the defence’s filings “are replete with provably false assertions that Giuliani never said and did the things Ms Dunphy alleges,” adding that the “lies were conceived with a malicious intent to harass Ms Dunphy to the point of dissuading her from pursuing her legal rights in this action.”
Ms Dunphy’s lawyers asserted that Mr Giuliani has a “troubling history of making materially false statements to courts and the public.”
The lawyers wrote that Mr Giuliani’s team denied making a series of bigoted statements – despite the fact they were caught on tape. “Incredibly, Giuliani asserts in a court filing that he never said things that he was recorded saying—even after Ms. Dunphy specifically alleged that the statements were recorded,” the motion states.
The lawyers pointed to specific examples of offensive remarks Mr Giuliani allegedly made.
In one case, the former mayor allegedly said, “Jews. They want to go through that freaking Passover all the time. Man, oh man. Get over the Passover. It was like 3,000 years ago. Ok, the Red Sea parted. Big deal. Not the first time that happened.”
He also allegedly said, “The way natural selection works. Jewish men have small c****s because they can’t use them after they get married. Whereas the Italians use them all their lives so they get bigger.”
Mr Giuliani also reportedly called actor Matt Damon a homophobic slur.
On top of these, the lawyers cited vulgar comments he allegedly made to Ms Dunphy: “Come here, big t***. Your t*** belong to me. Give them to me. I want to claim my t***.” The former mayor of New York City also reportedly said that Ms Dunphy “reminded him of his daughter.”
Ms Dunphy’s lawyer asked the court to impose sanctions on the defence team “for frivolous litigation conduct” as well as to “award Ms. Dunphy reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs for having to make this motion, and award to Ms. Dunphy such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.”
In reply, on 16 August, lawyers for Mr Giuliani described the proposed sanctions as “a bullying and retributive attempt to get back at Defendants for seeking costs related to the motion to strike.”
As for the alleged remarks, his team said Ms Dunphy “mischaracterizes the nature of these conversations, making denial of the statements appropriate,” while also calling the transcripts “unverified” and the recordings “unauthenticated.” In other cases, Mr Giuliani’s lawyers wrote that their client “does not recall or believe he made many of these comments.”
On 22 August, the same day Mr Giuliani posted his defence fund’s details, Ms Dunphy’s team wrote that it was insufficient to cite that Mr Giuliani “‘does not remember’ having made the harassing and bigoted statements that were recorded. Giuliani was not forced to make unequivocal—but false—denials in his motion papers.”
On the same day, the defence team wrote in further support of the motion to strike certain allegations from the lawsuit.
According to court records, the decisions on such matters have not yet been decided. The Independent has reached out to lawyers for Ms Dunphy and Mr Giuliani.
The following day, the man once known as “America’s Mayor” was arrested in the Fulton County, Georgia election case on charges related to efforts to overturn then-President Donald Trump‘s loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
