Rudy Giuliani, who keeps telling courts he's broke, just got hit with a $132,000 bill from a judge

• Rudy Giuliani automatically lost a defamation lawsuit brought by two election workers in Georgia.
• He was also slapped with more than $130,000 in legal fees.
• The judge said the "cloak of victimization" Giuliani wears in public won't fly in her courtroom.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani automatically lost a federal defamation lawsuit brought by two election workers after the judge found that he failed to turn over evidence in the case.

He was also slapped with a $132,000 bill for legal fees, adding yet another financial headache for the former New York mayor as he faces a slew of criminal and civil lawsuits related to his personal life, business dealings, and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

US District Judge Beryl Howell didn't mince words in her 57-page ruling in the defamation lawsuit, saying she was handing Giuliani an automatic loss because he failed to turn over discovery evidence in the case. A jury will decide how much he will pay in damages to the election workers, in addition to the sanctions.

"Donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences, but in a court of law this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery in a straight-forward defamation case," Howell wrote in her ruling.

Giuliani had broadcast false rumors that accused Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea' ArShaye Moss of fraud, and they sued him for defamation.

In June, Georgia's State Election Board dismissed its yearslong investigation into the alleged election fraud, clearing the women of any alleged wrongdoing. 

Giuliani "assured this Court directly that he "understand[s] the obligations" because he has "been doing this for 50 years," Howell wrote Wednesday.

"In this case, however, Giuliani has given only lip service to compliance with his discovery obligations and this Court's orders by failing to take reasonable steps" to preserve and turn over discovery evidence, she continued.

"The fact that Giuliani is a sophisticated litigant with a self-professed 50 years of experience in litigation — including serving as the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York — only underscores his lackluster preservation efforts," Howell wrote.

Giuliani must pay $89,172.50 to reimburse Freeman and Moss for legal fees, plus interest. He's also on the hook for another $43,684 in fees associated with his businesses' failure to hand over discovery evidence in the case.

In a statement, Giuliani's spokesperson Ted Goodman said Howell's opinion was too long. Summary judgement opinions, however, often span dozens or hundreds of pages.

Goodman also repeated a claim that Giuliani made in court, which is that he couldn't access information that was previously seized by the FBI in April 2021.

"This 57-page opinion on discovery — which would usually be no more than two or three pages — is a prime example of the weaponization of our justice system, where the process is the punishment," Goodman told Insider. "This decision should be reversed, as Mayor Giuliani is wrongly accused of not preserving electronic evidence that was seized and held by the FBI." 

In her ruling, Howell wrote that complaints about the FBI were just another excuse to avoid fulfilling discovery obligations in the case, and that Giuliani's account of how the evidence was handled by the FBI was contradicted by his own lawyer.

Giuliani "plainly should have known better" given his "much-vaunted experience as an attorney" and should have taken steps to preserve the evidence needed for the case, she wrote.

It is not the government's job to preserve Giuliani's electronically stored information, the judge wrote. 

"Simply put, the government is not Giuliani's ESI preservation team, and the FBI's seizure of Giuliani's electronic devices did not obviate his obligation to take additional preservation efforts before and after the seizure," Howell wrote.