Bankrupt Rudy Giuliani kept his reported girlfriend, Dr. Maria Ryan, and her daughter Vanessa Fenderson on his dwindling payroll, creditors say. However, his security honcho denied Friday that the two are an item, and stressed they're simply work colleagues.
“Dr. Maria Ryan is Mayor Giuliani’s business partner and nothing more,” Ragusa told the New York Post. “Any reports of her being his girlfriend are false rumors made up by the mayor’s enemies to damage his reputation and anyone associated with him.”
Fenderson has dabbled as a part-time secretary for Giuliani for more than five years.
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The group of creditors tasked with recouping $148 million from the former New York City mayor are protesting to a judge to install a trustee to oversee the 80-year-old's finances "to protect the creditors... and [Giuliani from himself."
They point to thousands of dollars in "unauthorized" payments paid to remit Ryan's credit card bill and his business, Giuliani Partners, to "cover the travel and lodging expenses of his close associates and employees."
Ryan was Giuliani's co-host in the recently canceled WABC radio show.
The creditors point out how Giuliani admitted in separate court papers filed Monday to “using his income to pay the salaries of his reported girlfriend and her daughter,” according to The Independent, citing the filing.
The Post also separately quoted the creditors's suspicions of the ex-mayor's spending ways: “[Giuliani] is admitting that his income, an estate asset, is being used to fund their salaries, as ’employees’ … instead of distributions to creditors."
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The report stated that Giuliani paid parts of Ryan’s credit card bills.
And in April, the bankruptcy creditors subpoenaed Ryan, the outlet added.
They seek to swiftly appoint a trustee to get his finances in order.
“This request is not meant to ‘punish’ but to protect the creditors and the estate from the [Giuliani]... from himself,” the lawyers stated,” according to the bankruptcy court papers filed in Manhattan Thursday.
They slammed Giuliani for his “dishonesty, incompetence and gross mismanagement of [his] affairs” and added that he can no longer be trusted to act in good faith in the Chapter 11 case.
Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in December after he lost a defamation trial against him for falsely accusing a mother-daughter pair of Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss of committing voter fraud in the 2020 election.