Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was sued Monday by his onetime lawyers in a lawsuit that says he owes $1.36 million in unpaid legal fees.
Robert Costello, a partner at the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, sued Giuliani in New York Supreme Court. He and his law firm are seeking payment of legal services that Giuliani has received since 2019.
According to the lawsuit, Costello’s firm began providing Giuliani legal services around November 2019, which continued through July of this year. The lawsuit said legal services provided by the firm included early representation in what became the election interference cases in Georgia and Washington, D.C.
The law firm alleges that it billed Giuliani directly for fees and expenses totaling more than $1.5 million, and that Giuliani only paid $214,000.
In response to the lawsuit, Giuliani said the dollar amount sought was excessive.
"I can’t express how personally hurt I am by what Bob Costello has done," Giuliani said in a statement. "It’s a real shame when lawyers do things like this, and all I will say is that their bill is way in excess to anything approaching legitimate fees."
Earlier this month, NBC News reported that former President Donald Trump hosted a fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to help a legal defense fund for Giuliani, who is among Trump's 18 co-defendants indicted in Georgia for alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state. All 19 defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
In the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, the person named as co-conspirator #1 in the indictment against Trump appears to be Giuliani, based on previous testimony and other records. The indictment filed Aug. 1 cites Giuliani’s efforts to overturn the election results using false claims of fraud in Arizona and Georgia.
Costello at the time said that co-conspirator #1 did appear to be his client, but added that “Every fact that Mayor Giuliani possesses about this case establishes the good faith basis President Trump had for the actions he took.”
The lawsuit from Costello and his firm adds to Giuliani's legal woes.
Earlier this year, he was sued in a wide-ranging $10 million lawsuit filed by Noelle Dunphy, a woman whose allegations included Giuliani harassing her and discussing the selling of presidential pardons after her hiring in 2019. Giuliani has denied the claims.
In July, a disciplinary board for the DC Bar Association recommended that Giuliani be stripped of his law license over alleged "malicious and meritless claims" he made to undermine the 2020 election. A spokesman for Giuliani at the time said the move was "part of a larger effort to deny President Trump effective counsel by persecuting Mayor Giuliani."
Last month, a federal judge found Giuliani liable for defaming two election workers in boosting Trump’s stolen election claims.
