Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
After Rudy Giuliani resisted the appointment of a trustee that would seize control of his finances during his Chapter 11 bankruptcy, creditors ridiculed his claims by referring to them in scare quotes as “legal argument” and said he made a “stunning admission” to operating through “an alter ego LLC” that counts the daughter of fired WABC Radio co-host Dr. Maria Ryan as a part-time assistant.
In a Thursday filing on behalf the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, attorneys with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP representing defamed Georgia election worker Shaye Moss, former Giuliani employee and sexual assault accuser Noelle Dunphy, and Dominion Voting Systems, said that, if anything, the former NYC mayor made it clearer that appointing a trustee with far-reaching authority over his assets and companies is a necessary next step.
“In ten pages consisting largely of statements against interest and six pages of ‘legal argument,’ the Debtor makes the Committee’s case for the appointment of a chapter 11 trustee,” the reply began, calling it “stunning” that Giuliani acknowledged operating through the “alter ego LLC” known as Giuliani Communications.
The reason it’s “stunning,” the creditors’ lawyers say, is that it opens up another legal avenue for them to collect on what they are owed.
“This admission lays the groundwork for reverse veil piercing whereby the Debtor’s creditors could look to the Debtor’s ‘alter ego LLC’ to satisfy their claims,” the filing said.
While creditors have alleged that Giuliani may be “funneling funds that belong to his creditors to his business and using his business as a personal piggy bank, which is fraudulent,” Giuliani has answered that “operating through an alter ego LLC is usual and customary and is not fraud or deceit[.]”
“Currently the Debtor is employed by Giuliani Communications, LLC, the Debtor’s wholly owned operating entity,” the Giuliani filing continued, saying he has “always done business through various entities — recently through the Giuliani Communications company.”
But Giuliani isn’t the only person employed by and paid through the “alter ego LLC,” according to his own filing. Those individuals include Maria Ryan, part-time bookkeeper Ryan Medrano, “America’s Mayor Live” podcast producer and Giuliani spokesman Ted Goodman, part-time producer Michael Ragusa, and a part-time assistant identified as “Vanessa Federson,” who “assists with general secretarial duties and deals with the shows guest and their travel arrangements.”
Creditors say that “Federson” is a misspelling of “Fenderson,” and that the person Giuliani’s opposition was actually talking about is Vanessa Dawn Fenderson, an “alias” for 38-year-old Vanessa Dawn Ryan — the daughter of Maria Ryan that Giuliani once helped fight insurance fraud charges, a case that ended with a nolle prosequi in December 2018, Broward County, Fla., court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
“The Debtor has provided no information about her employment by [Giuliani Communications] or related salary,” creditors said.
Footnotes delved deeper, identifying Fenderson as an individual facing pending felony drug trafficking charges in Wake County, N.C., going back to a Sept. 29, 2023 arrest.
Law&Crime looked up the criminal docket in North Carolina, and it shows a Manchester, N.H., address for the defendant, an address to a home that state records say is owned by one Maria Rose Ryan. The same address was given in the dropped Florida case, in which the former defendant was named as Vanessa Ryan.
“The Debtor is admitting that his income, an estate asset, is being used to fund their salaries, as ’employees’ of his non-Debtor business, instead of distributions to creditors,” creditors’ lawyers said.
The attorneys also wondered aloud as to why the Fenderson “alias” was used.
“It is anyone’s guess as to why the Debtor decided to refer in the Opposition to Vanessa Ryan by an alias,” a footnote said.
Urging U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane to appoint a trustee, citing Giuliani’s “flouting [of] court orders and ignoring [of] his discovery-related obligations,” creditors lawyers ominously said the former NYC mayor “has a long way to go.”
“And, as we know all too well from the Debtor’s prepetition conduct and conduct in this bankruptcy case, just because the Debtor says something does not make it true, and his conclusory statement that the Committee has not met its burden for the appointment of a trustee could not be less persuasive,” the reply said, ending with a sharp commentary on where things stand:
Next, the Debtor offers a verbose introduction in which he paints himself as having had “a storied career” as a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, a two-term “Major of New York City,” [sic] a Deputy Attorney General, a lawyer and a consultant. But somehow, this former U.S. attorney, mayor and deputy attorney general cannot figure out how to file an accurate monthly operating report, “is not an accurate record keeper” and admits he needs to “improve his adherence to the administrative guidelines which is essential to the proper administration of the case.”
Law&Crime reached out to Giuliani’s spokesman for comment.
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