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Rudolph Giuliani must pay the $148 million debt he owes two Georgia election workers — despite his bankruptcy, the pair said in a new complaint, Bloomberg Law reported. The judge overseeing the former New York City mayor’s chapter 11 case shouldn’t allow Giuliani to use bankruptcy to avoid the debt because bankruptcy law blocks the discharge of debt incurred through “willful and malicious injury,” the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, said in a filing Friday. Freeman and Moss were awarded $148 million in December after a court found Giuliani liable for defaming the pair by accusing them of rigging 2020 election results for Joe Biden. He filed for bankruptcy shortly after. A ruling in favor of Freeman and Moss in the bankruptcy case would prevent Giuliani from clearing what is by far his biggest debt. Giuliani has reported having $10.6 million in assets against almost $153 million in liabilities.

Louise Blouin, who grew up in a small town in Quebec, rose to the top tiers of society in New York and London a little more than two decades ago. She made a name for herself as an art-world mogul and a host of heady salons and glittering parties filled with artists, scientists, dignitaries and billionaires. But her time as a power player seemed to come to an end on Feb. 13, when she entered a bankruptcy courtroom in Central Islip, N.Y., the New York Times reported. Having informed the judge in December that she could not afford a lawyer, she arrived in the company of her third husband, Mathew Kabatoff. The judge, Alan S. Trust, heard hours of testimony as he considered whether or not he would approve the sale of La Dune, the beachfront estate that Blouin had once hoped to sell for no less than $115 million. The property had been on and off the market for several years before an anonymous bidder struck an agreement to buy it for nearly $89 million at an auction at Sotheby’s Auction House in Manhattan on Jan. 24. In court last week, Blouin did her best to thwart a sale at that price. The price tag for La Dune fell millions short of the debt on the property, according to John Isbell, a lawyer who worked on the deal on behalf of the real estate lender Bay Point Advisors.

A bankruptcy judge has ruled that Rudy Giuliani, the once-respected former mayor of New York City, can appeal the $146 million verdict after he was found liable of defaming two Georgia elections workers — if he uses pre-approved donors to pay the legal expenses, NBCNews.com reported. In December, an eight-person jury awarded Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, the multimillion-dollar judgment after Giuliani was found to have defamed them, which the mother-daughter duo said had changed their lives forever and caused them to be flooded with a torrent of racist and violent threats. Giuliani baselessly accused them of trying to commit fraud in Georgia as part of a multifaceted effort to overturn Donald Trump's 2020 election defeat. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in New York in December after the federal judge in his Washington case ordered him to start paying the Georgia election workers. On Tuesday, the bankruptcy judge assigned to Giuliani's case in New York said the former mayor must seek the judge's approval before any third-party payment of fees and expenses. Those fees cannot come from Giuliani's existing assets, the judge said. "Any fees and expenses incurred by the Debtor and his advisors in the Freeman Litigation in connection with any Post-Trial Filings and the Notice of Appeal shall not be paid by, and shall not result in a claim against, the Debtor or his estate," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane wrote. In a court filing last week, Freeman and Moss noted that Giuliani's son was president of Giuliani Defense, a legal defense fund, and said it was "essential to obtain clarity on how the Legal Defense Funds were themselves funded." On Monday, Giuliani declared that he had not directly or indirectly donated any money to either of his legal defense funds.