Rudy Giuliani must immediately pay the $148 million he owes two Georgia women he falsely accused of helping steal the 2020 election, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in a scathing order accusing the former Trump attorney of ongoing dishonesty.
Judge Beryl A. Howell wrote that there is a strong danger Giuliani is likely to hide his assets from plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss and is unlikely to succeed in having last week’s the jury verdict overturned or cut down on appeal.
Attorneys for the two women still have to enforce the judgment against Giuliani, which may involve further court proceedings. But they do not have to wait the standard 30 days to begin trying to seize his assets.
I get that debtors prisons are a bad idea.
I also get that if a typical person is in debt, it’s reasonable to allow them to keep their home, keep their car, and keep working at their job so that they can pay off their debt.
But, for someone who’s rich but owes hundreds of millions, the same rules can’t apply. That’s how you have Alex Jones spending $100k per month while owing over $1 billion.
Also, while the judgements might get paid off quicker of these people can keep doing whatever their lucrative business was before they were sued, in many cases they were sued because their business is so toxic to the world: Alex Jones denying massacres, Rudy Giuliani siccing a right-wing mob on election workers, Trump threatening judges, etc.
Maybe they should be forced to sell off all their assets, everything, and then have the option to rent them back from the people they owe money to. Maybe they should be forced to sell everything and live in a rented apartment taking public transit until their obligations are met. Maybe the court could appoint a spending advisor who has to OK every request to spend money over a certain amount. I guess it’s no surprise that a bankruptcy system that sort-of makes sense when dealing with poor or middle income people breaks down entirely when trying to deal with the rich.