Rudy Giuliani and his estranged wife Judith faced off for the first time in their divorce at Manhattan Supreme Court this morning.
President Trump’s lawyer arrived just after 9am and strode towards room 300, the venue for the couple’s case, flanked by his legal team and security with a confident swagger.
Asked if he had anything to say about his divorce he simply shook his head, smiled wryly and said, ‘No.’
Rudy Giuliani (above) arrived just after 9am to Manhattan Supreme Court, the venue for his case, flanked by his legal team and security with a confident swagger.
Judith Giuliani (above) arrives at Manhattan Supreme Court to face her estranged husband Rudy in their divorce case
Asked if he had anything to say about the Mueller enquiry he simply chuckled.
The stakes are high for Giuliani, who is estimated to be worth $45 million.
Third wife Judith has insisted there was no prenup when she married him in 2002.
She glided into the courtroom to where her husband was already sitting with his legal counsel, Faith Miller, who stood as she extended a hand in greeting.
Guiliani remained stubbornly seated, his back to his wife as she extended her hand over his shoulder forcing him to shift in his seat and return her handshake.
‘Good to see you Rudy,’ she said.
It was a superficial display on niceties in an already ugly divorce.
Judith beamed after leaving the two-hour divorce hearing where her attorney had accused husband Rudy of suffering from SIDS – Sudden Income Deficit Syndrome
Judith claims he was having an affair with 53-year-old Maria Rose Ryan, a doctor and hospital CEO.
Maria is also the mother of Vanessa Ryan, Giuliani’s assistant who he defended in court in May as she stood accused of financial fraud.
Giuliani and the older Ryan were seen together at the Mountain View Resort and Spa in Whitefield, New Hampshire, on March 29 and reportedly spent the night together in the $524-a-night Summit Suite after dining on prime rib and watching The Godfather.
Nathan, who married Giuliani in 2003 after he left his second wife for her, filed for contested divorce in New York City on April 4, a week after his trip to New Hampshire where he was also filmed visiting Ryan’s hospital by a local news network.
Court papers claim Rudy Giuliani has spent close to $900,000 on travel, hotels and Dr Ryan since April while claiming penury in the face of his wife, Judith’s, divorce claims.
Giuliani’s third wife, Judith Nathan, 63, filed for divorce on April 4. She filed a contested divorce, citing their assets as the source of dispute. It was a week after his trip to Ryan’s hospital
In an excoriating opening statement attorney Bernard Clair laid out the details of financial dealings that Giuliani has fought to keep secret and accused Giuliani of suffering from SIDS – Sudden Income Deficit Syndrome – in the wake of divorce filings in April.
While he cut off his wife’s credit card, Clair said, Giuliani spent a total of $286, 532 on Ryan including $70,000 from his personal checking account.
He spent $165,000 on travel including limousines, taxis and hotels, $12,000 on cigars and more than that amount on fountain pens, which he collects.
His voice raising in disbelief Clair said, ‘My client doesn’t care about romantic connections with Dr or Mrs Ryan what she cares about are these expenses for these people are continuing while she has not received any support since August, not a dime!’
Clair accused Giuliani of ‘hiding behind’ the notion of ‘income deficit’ while spending generously on the woman with whom he has consistently denied a relationship.
In opening the day’s proceedings Clair had begun by acknowledging the debt the nation owed to Giuliani for his actions post 9/11, saying, ‘Mr Giuliani has a lot to be proud of as America’s mayor post 9/11. He was a leader we needed and I would be remiss if I didn’t thank him for his service.’
But it was the debt ‘owed’ by Giuliani to his estranged wife with which Clair was most interested today. And in that, he said, ‘His action, his conduct is not something to be proud of.’
For all his wealth and public profile Clair stated, ‘In this action Mr Giuliani is no different and is treated the same as the bartender in Buffalo or the billionaire on Bond Street.’
And while Giuliani is spending extravagantly on himself and Ryan, Clair demanded, ‘What’s happening to [my client’s] lifestyle that she has enjoyed since 1999 and then after the marriage?’
Motions were being heard today in front of Justice Michael Katz who at times appeared less than impressed by Clair’s playing to the gallery.
In regards to the legal fees being claimed by Judith, Justice Katz noted that they were ‘substantial.’
‘It’s a substantial case your Honor,’ Clair retorted.
The couple’s six properties – including two apartments in Palm Beach, a house in the Hamptons and a Manhattan property with a monthly expense of $35,000 – were also the subject of furious debate. One of the properties is solely in Judith’s name.
Yet Katz wondered why the two parties couldn’t work out what seemed to him to be ‘easily divided.’
Giuliani has contended that he was kicked out then locked out of their Manhattan apartment – an apartment he is fighting to reclaim.
Giuliani denied having an affair but said he and Ryan, who is 21 years younger than him, is a ‘very, very fine woman’
According to Katz, ‘As it stands he could move back in tomorrow….I’m not sure that’s a good idea [but he could].’
For the only time in proceedings Giuliani smiled behind his hand.
Katz continued, ‘The two properties in Palm Beach that seems easily divided…different months in the year.’
Giuliani has also sought to have a gag order instated to prevent both he and his estranged wife from speaking publicly about their relationship and proceedings.
Judith gave a lengthy interview to New York Magazine in August in which she hinted at dark changes in her husband saying that for reasons she understood both ‘as a nurse and a spouse’ he was not the same man she married.
Among the expenses for which Judith argued – a total sum of $63,000 since August – are the continued care of her 87-year-old mother (an expense to which Guiliani has agreed), the cost of her personal assistant (whose existence Giuliani disputes) and membership of country clubs. The couple are members of a total tally of 11.
Before Faith Miller embarked on her retort to Clair’s motion, Katz appeared to caution both parties. Urging them to attempt to come to agreement over these matters in private he said, ‘That would treat their marriage with more respect than throwing out all their dirty laundry for airing in public.’
Nevertheless Miller went onto take issue with Judith’s claims, unaired to that point, that Giuliani spent $90,000 on jewelery for Mrs Ryan and $58,000 on flying Mrs Ryan and her daughter around in a private jet.
In fact, Miller argued, that $90,000 was spent on a variety of things including a 30 year anniversary for a longstanding employee. Ryan is the mother of Guiliani’s assistant, Vanessa.
As for those flights, Miller said that of those six flights had 16 passengers and the total for all of them came to $58,000.
According to Miller, Guiliani has spent more than $1million on Judith since April.
Directly addressing Clair’s claims that Guiliani has concealed the truth of his financial status she said, ‘Nothing nefarious has happened here. Mr Giuliani has not hidden anything.’
Instead, she said, there had simply been a change in the financial status quo since the couple’s separation in April.
On March 29, Ryan spoke about the importance of cyber security at hospitals during Giuliani’s visit
In 2017 Giuliani’s approximate income was in excess of $9million wheresas last year it was ‘just shy of $5million.’
Giuliani has, according to his counsel been ‘painstakingly honest’ in his financial dealings – a comment at which Judith closed her eyes and pursed her lips.
According to Miller he has paid $150,000 a month to his wife since April while, with a pot of $7million to which she has sole access she has no real need for financial support. Judith shook her head vehemently saying, ‘That’s not true.’
With her brief response complete, Judge Katz retired telling parties he did not envisage coming to any quick conclusion and saying, ‘Don’t expect a decision tomorrow morning.’
Wearing her sunglasses and cutting a glamorous figure, Judith was smailing as she left the two hour-long hearing.
Asked by DailyMail.com what she thought of the assertion that her husband had been ‘painstakingly honest’ in his disclosures she remained silent. Her attorney Clair said, ‘It’s going to be no comment.’
Judith has previously been outspoken about Giuliani and Ryan.
In a statement after filing for divorce, she said: ‘My husband’s denial of the affair with the married Mrs. Ryan is as false as his claim that we were separated when he took up with her.’
Giuliani has denied infidelity, insisting that he and Ryan, who he called a ‘very, very fine woman’, were ‘friends’. He added there was ‘no proof’ they had sex.
In June Giuliani told DailyMail.com: ‘We’d be crazy with her married and her husband and a friend of mine – we’d be crazy to do stuff like that.’
Giuliani suggested Judith had accused him of adultery during their marriage in order to gain an advantage in divorce proceedings. ‘My guess is she’s going to want more [than 50 percent] and that’s what this is about,’ he said.
On March 29, Giuliani visited Cottage Hospital where Ryan is the CEO. Local networks filmed Giuliani’s visit at the time.
He said he was there to look at the hospital’s cyber security equipment which was of interest to one of his businesses, Giuliani Security and Safety.
Ryan also gave an interview about the importance of looking after patient documents.
Afterwards, they drove an hour to the hotel where staff said Giuliani was treated like a ‘VIP’.
He had arranged with staff to have access to the private screening room for him to watch The Godfather and The Godfather II.
On the night in question, he, Ryan and two other men had dinner in the hotel restaurant.
Giuliani dined on a $32 Prime Rib.
Afterwards, he and Ryan went back to his room, the $524-a-night Summit Suite.
‘We were all surprised because he is really getting on in years, and she was quite a bit younger than him.
‘We were all like, “Hmmm,”” the hotel staff member said.
The visit on March 29 came a week before Nathan filed for divorce on April 4.
Giuliani admitted having dinner with her at the hotel in March but said they dined with others and that there was ‘no proof’ they had had sex.
‘I do know Dr. Ryan. She is a friend of mine, so is her husband Bob.
‘She’s a PhD and a very, very fine woman.
‘I was in effect separated by then,’ he said.
Pushed on whether or not the pair had a romantic relationship, he said: ‘I never spent the night with her. There’s no proof. There can’t be because we never did anything.’
Giuliani and Judith’s romance famously began when Giuliani was still married to his second wife, Donna Hanover.
He met Judith, then Judith Nathan, in a cigar bar in 1999 while he was still mayor.
In 2000, he announced at a press conference that he was leaving Hanover, the mother of his two children.
She was unaware of it beforehand and later participated in her own press conference where she claimed he’d had a previous affair with a different woman.
Giuliani’s first marriage, to Regina Peruggi, was annulled in 1982 because they were second cousins.
The rumored affair and marital mess serves as fresh embarrassment for President Trump who is under siege by pornstar Stormy Daniels and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
They say that in 2016, Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen paid Stormy $130,000 to ensure her silence over an alleged affair she had with Trump in 2006.
Giuliani was brought on to Trump’s legal team to hep settle the matter but instead, he appears to have hindered it.
RUDY’S FAILED ROMANCES
Rudy Giuliani married his second cousin, Regina Peruggi, in 1968.
They were together officially until 1982 when they had the marriage annulled. By then, Giuliani had taken a job in the Attorney General’s office in Washington DC and had launched his political career.
They had been separated for seven years beforehand, parting ways in 1975. In 1982, he met Donna Hanover who would become his second wife.
Before they could tie the knot, he and Peruggi had to have their marriage dissolved. It was both dismissed by a court and annulled by the church and the pair claimed that they did not know they were related despite growing up together.
He and Hanover married in 1984 and had two children together.
They were together, seemingly happily, until the mid nineties when it was reported that Giuliani, by then the mayor of New York City, was having an affair with his press secretary, Cristyne Lategano.
The pair denied it fervently.
Hanover alleged that Giuliani had been having an affair with his press secretary, Cristyne Lategano-Nicholas, which he denied
In 1999, at a stunning press conference, he announced his diagnosis along with the news that he was leaving Hanover for Judith Nathan who he described, like he did Ryan on Tuesday, as a ‘very, very fine person’.
Hanover gave her own press conference afterwards on the steps of Gracie Mansion where she alluded to his alleged affair with Lategano.
‘Today’s turn of events brings me great sadness. I had hoped to keep this marriage together. For several years, it was difficult to participate in Rudy’s public life because of his relationship with one staff member,’ she said.
Giuliani later said that his prostate cancer diagnosis meant he wasn’t having sex with anybody.
‘Psychologically, too, if someone tells you you have cancer, the last thing you think about is sex, and then later on, it comes back,’ he told Howard Stern in 2002.
He said he regained his strength ‘within six months to a year’.
Donna refused to leave Gracie mansion and filed a restraining order to keep Nathan out of it.
In 2003, Giuliani and Nathan married in 2003 and, despite Donna’s attempts, continued to live in Gracie Mansion. Giuliani beat his cancer in 2002.
During an interview with Sean Hannity earlier this month, Giuliani confirmed what Trump had been dancing around for months – that the money was paid, that the president knew about it and that he even gave Cohen, who had ‘funelled it through his law firm’, the amount back.
‘The money is going to turn out to be perfectly legal.
‘The—that money was not campaign money, sorry. I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know: It’s not campaign money. No campaign-finance violation.
‘[They] funnelled it through the law firm, and the President repaid it,’ he said.
He was also slammed for his recent claim that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ‘got on his hands and knees and begged’ for a meeting with Trump.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was forced to speak out after that comment to insist: ‘Giuliani does not speak for this administration’.
He was also slapped down by First Lady Melania Trump after asserting that she ‘believes’ the president did not sleep with Daniels in 2006.
Stephanie Grisham, Melania’s spokesman, told The New York Times afterwards: ”I don’t believe Mrs. Trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with Mr. Giuliani.’