Rudy Giuliani is ordered to pay $1.36 million in legal bills

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s another blow to Rudy Giuliani’s withered wallet: A judge has ordered the former New York City mayor to pay $1.36 million in legal fees he racked up during investigations into his efforts to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Judge Arthur Engoron made the ruling Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by lawyer Robert Costello and the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP. In granting summary judgment for Costello and the firm, Engoron rejected Giuliani’s claim that he never received any bills for legal fees.

With interest, Giuliani owes nearly $1.6 million. He must also pay lawyer costs that Costello and the firm incurred in fighting to recoup his unpaid legal fees, the judge ruled.

Engoron, a Democrat, is the same Manhattan judge who last year ordered Trump to pay a massive civil penalty after finding that he had engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. The fine ballooned to more than $500 million with interest before an appeals court overturned it last month.

Giuliani’s spokesperson said the ex-mayor will appeal.

“The idea that Judge Arthur Engoron is permitted to sit on a case involving President Donald Trump’s good friend and former personal lawyer, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, flies in the face of justice and demonstrates the partisan political nature of this decision,” Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman said.

Messages seeking comment were left for Costello and Davidoff Hutcher & Citron.

The decision is the latest financial setback for Giuliani, once celebrated as “America’s mayor” for his leadership after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In recent years, the Republican has filed for bankruptcy; been threatened with jail for failing to pay money owed to his third ex-wife, Judith; and reached an undisclosed settlement to keep his homes and belongings, including prized World Series rings, after he was ordered to pay $148 million to two former Georgia elections workers he defamed.

Last month, Giuliani, 81, sustained a fractured vertebra and other injuries in a car crash in New Hampshire. Soon after, Trump announced he was awarding Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Costello and Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP sued Giuliani in 2023, accusing him of paying only a fraction of nearly $1.6 million in legal fees for their work representing him in investigations related to his alleged election interference.

Giuliani was disbarred in New York and Washington for repeatedly making false statements about the 2020 election, and he was criminally charged in Georgia and Arizona in connection with efforts to undo Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing.

Costello and the law firm alleged Giuliani paid them just $214,000, leaving a $1.36 million tab. Giuliani’s last payment was $10,000 on Sept. 14, 2023, about a week after Trump hosted a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser for Giuliani at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.

Costello was Giuliani’s lawyer from November 2019 to July 2023. He represented Giuliani in matters ranging from an investigation into his business dealings in Ukraine, which resulted in an FBI raid on his home and office in April 2021, to state and federal probes of his work in the wake of Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Costello and the firm said in their lawsuit that they also helped represent Giuliani in various civil lawsuits filed against him and in disciplinary proceedings that ultimately led to his disbarment. The lawyer and the law firm accused Giuliani of breaching a retainer agreement by failing to pay invoices in full in a timely fashion.

Costello, a former federal prosecutor, has since left Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP and was hired last in September 2024 as a lawyer for Republican-controlled Nassau County on Long Island.

Last year, Trump’s lawyers called Costello as a witness at the president’s hush money criminal trial in an effort to attack the credibility of a key prosecution witness, former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. Costello irritated the judge, Juan M. Merchan, by making comments under his breath, rolling his eyes and calling called the whole exercise “ridiculous.”