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Rudy Giuliani Cries to Bankruptcy Court That Forcing Him to Sell Florida Condo Could Make Him Homeless

You could say Rudy Giuliani is a bit panicky. The former New York City mayor owes millions of dollars — and he’s clearly trying to slow things down, claiming that bankruptcy creditors forcing him to sell his Palm Beach, Florida, condo is “premature,” new court filings reveal.

Perhaps he feels his situation had become desperate after a jury ordered him to pay $148 million to the two Georgia election workers that he defamed. This led him to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last December. In February he filed for an appeal on the jury’s decision. But things haven’t exactly gone in his favor.

On March 15, the Committee of Unsecured Creditors, representing individuals and entities to whom Giuliani owes money, or soon will, filed a motion in bankruptcy court requesting the court to force Giuliani to sell his Florida home, The Independent [1] reports.

Giuliani’s attorneys have responded by filing a motion on Thursday that claims he could be “irreparably harmed” if his condo is sold and the defamation payment ruling is overturned on appeal. The committee is “assuming that most if not all” of the judgment “will survive on appeal,” per his lawyers wrote, arguing that this is “premature and without legal authority.”

Mr Giuliani splits his time between his Florida and New York City properties, the lawyers wrote. Both Mr Giuliani and the committee agree that the Manhattan apartment “should be sold.” Once it’s sold, the former mayor intends to make the Palm Beach condo his primary home, the filing says.

Giuliani valued his Palm Beach residence at $3.5 million in previous court filings. This makes the condo his second most valuable reported asset, with his Manhattan apartment worth even more. The Upper East Side apartment, which has three bedrooms has been previously for $6.5 million. However, it has been taken off the market, because bankruptcy court filings have slashed its worth by nearly $1 million.

And lawyers for the committee are pushing on, having argued that the Florida condo is “a significant drain on estate resources.” It is indeed pricey, and in January alone, Giuliani made two $15,995 maintenance fee payments, the March 15 filing reports. But Giuliani’s attorneys claim he pays roughly $8,400 each month on maintenance and real estate taxes. His attorneys also contend that while the committee believes he is acting in “reckless abandon” by continuing to hold onto the Florida condo, the former mayor is actually “using sound business judgment by understanding that he cannot afford or legally maintain two properties.”

So Giuliani is sliding down an ethical rabbit hole. His attorneys say if he is forced to sell his home in Florida, he will “be forced to incur expenses for alternative housing. Surely the Committee does not intend [Mr. Giuliani] to join the ranks of the homeless?”

And they whined in the filing that not only that, but Giuliani uses both residences to operate his podcast businesses, citing that both homes are equipped with a “studio.” The former mayor will “need a place to operate the Podcast from if he is to earn money therefrom,” the attorneys wrote.

The money he earns from his podcast “would only serve to benefit creditors,” according to the filing.

Does anyone give a big whoop if Giuliani goes homeless? He began a reign of terror on homelessness in New York City during his time as mayor. This is a man who said at one point that “streets do not exist in civilized societies for the purpose of people sleeping there,” per The New York Times [2]in November 1999. “Bedrooms are for sleeping.” He also said that the right to sleep on the streets “doesn’t exist anywhere. The founding fathers never put that in the Constitution.”

Well, that’s true. They didn’t address that. But this was a different time. They also didn’t address slavery. And the Constitution was largely meant to address well-heeled white men. So it didn’t address a lot of stuff.

It would be fun to see Giuliani get a taste of his own medicine since he enforced cruelly draconian measures to remove homeless people from the city’s streets. Donald Trump’s lapdog won’t have his dog house any longer. He’d be out there with the very people he persecuted.