Rudy Giuliani Dragged Into Court Again Over a Measly $10K

Rudy Giuliani is drowning in debt, and yet another pissed-off associate has come knocking—for a paltry $10,000.

This time, it’s an Upstate New York accounting firm that saw Giuliani through his most recent divorce.

The company, BST & Co. CPAs, says the former New York City mayor hired them to help value his business assets during his 2018 split from ex-wife Judith Nathan, then never paid a dime of the agreed-upon $10,000 retainer. Now, after five years of trying to get their money, they’re suing the apparently flat-broke Giuliani in a last-ditch attempt to collect—plus another $15,000 in legal fees.

The lawsuit, which was filed Monday and obtained by The Daily Beast, adds an additional layer of pain to Giuliani’s already-crushing financial woes.

In September, Giuliani’s long-time lawyer sued him for $1.4 million in unpaid bills—a stunning move that shows just how Giuliani’s friends and associates are dropping like flies. Bob Costello, a former federal prosecutor who hailed from the same Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office once led by Giuliani, had previously considered himself fiercely loyal to the fellow Italian-American lawyer. They tried to create a controversial backchannel to the Trump White House. They teamed up for years to dig up dirt on President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. They battled the Jan. 6 Committee together.

In response, Giuliani paid Costello pennies on the dollar.

Other debts were more prosaic, such as a long-unpaid $30,000 phone bill racked up by Giuliani Partners, the consulting firm Rudy founded in 2002 after leaving the mayor’s office. The company was hauled into court last April over those charges, and was later found in default.

And yet, Giuliani’s coveted position as a devout follower of quadruple-indicted former President Donald Trump has actually given him access to tap the golden stream of MAGA dollars. In September, Giuliani’s son Andrew touted how the former president was hosting a $100,000-a-plate “Dinner With America’s Mayor” at his estate in Bedminster, New Jersey.

But the latest lawsuit shows that the hits keep coming—and they’re not even new.

New York State Supreme Court

BST and Giuliani signed a retainer agreement in April 2018, which laid out the precise rates the firm would be charging for its services related to his “pending matrimonial action.” Partners earned hourly rates between $410 and $575, senior managers got $335 to $400, managers and senior analysts were billed out at $185 to $275, and “other department staff” came in at $100 to $180.

During the divorce proceedings, Giuliani estimated his monthly expenses at $232,000.

One detailed invoice from BST shows how three accountants and one fraud examiner at the firm combed through Giuliani’s finances beginning in November 2019, together racking up 42 hours of work over a few weeks while they reviewed a year’s worth of American Express bills, examined 15-year-old tax returns, and scrutinized the assets he had shortly after leaving the mayor’s office. That invoice showed that Giuliani was already behind by $36,125, and the additional work jacked up the total bill to $50,833.

BST sent numerous demand letters—filed in court as exhibits alongside the firm’s complaint—to the former federal prosecutor. Giuliani ignored them all, according to the lawsuit.

“As you know, our retainer agreement is very specific with respect to payment terms,” said the first, sent in Oct. 2021. “You are in breach of that agreement and, accordingly, we must again insist on immediate payment of the balance due.”

A second demand letter warned Giuliani that BST was prepared to refer his account to collections if he didn’t make good on the debt.

Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

“It is not our desire to undertake such a distasteful course of action and we have been patient to this point, but your continued disregard of your obligation to this firm can no longer be tolerated,” the letter said. “We thank you in advance for your immediate attention to this matter.”

A third letter, sent Aug. 9, 2023, opened simply—”Dear Mr. Giuliani: This is an attempt to collect a debt. Any information will be used for that purpose.” It gave Giuliani exactly 30 days to dispute the charges in writing, or pay up.

According to the lawsuit, he never did. And Giuliani’s foot-dragging means he now owes more than double the original cost.

Giuliani spokesman Ted Goodman did not respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment on Tuesday. A message sent to the law firm BST hired to collect the debt from Giuliani went unanswered.

This isn’t the first time Giuliani is accused of stiffing the people who helped him sort through his divorce from Nathan, the nurse he was married to for nearly 16 years.

In August 2020, art adviser and TV personality Miller Gaffney sued him for $15,700, claiming that Giuliani never paid her for the work she’d done—appraising the estranged couple’s art collection to figure out how to fairly split it. She claimed she had demanded Giuliani pay the bill nine times over nearly a year before finally deciding to sue.

Gaffney dropped her lawsuit two months later after Giuliani didn’t even bother to file any court papers in response.

For Giuliani, it’s only getting worse from here. There’s another massive bill on the horizon—and potentially some prison time, too.

Giuliani has lost a defamation case in the nation’s capital before it even goes to trial, as a Washington federal judge has already decided that the disgraced former mayor spread vicious lies about two Georgia poll workers in his conspiracy-laden attempt to reverse Trump’s election loss in 2020. Giuliani is now begging the judge to not put the matter to a jury for a damages-only trial, asking her to instead make the decision herself.

Meanwhile, the guy who once took all the credit for dismantling the New York mob is facing his own criminal racketeering case in Fulton County, Georgia for trying to overturn the election there on Trump’s behalf. The case is looking increasingly dire for the many co-defendants left, given that several MAGA insiders have already flipped, including lawyer Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell.

And as if that’s not enough, Giuliani keeps cycling through defense lawyers in Atlanta. After one withdrew from the case, a second one just last month tried to drop out as well. All of them, presumably, expect to get paid.