NEW YORK — Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has been named in a bombshell sexual harassment suit, charging him with demanding sexual favors, and engaging in alcohol-fueled rages and wage theft.

The suit is from a woman Giuliani hired to handle business development for his firm. It is filled with multiple allegations about an influential politician who reportedly demanded sexual favors.

“He was constantly pressuring her, making sexual comments, sexual remarks, to her, about her, about himself. When they were supposed to be working he would, as our client alleges, he would then grope her and try to initiate sexual contact,” attorney Justin Kelton said. 

Kelton was talking about his client, Noelle Dunphy, and the complaint she filed in Manhattan Supreme Court charging Giuliani with sexual abuse, harassment and wage theft. He reportedly refused to pay her the $1 million salary he promised.

It is a complaint filled with shocking details and allegations, including that Giuliani allegedly: 

  • Drank morning, noon and night and was frequently intoxicated, and therefore his behavior was always unpredictable. 
  • Took Viagra constantly, would expose himself, and tell her that he could not do any work until “you take care of this.”
  • Made clear that satisfying his sexual demands, which came virtually anytime, anywhere, was an absolute requirement of her employment.

The suit says Giuliani “often demanded that Dunphy work naked, or in short-shorts with an American flag on them that he bought for her.”

The suit also claims Giuliani “demanded oral sex while he took phone calls,” including with then-President Donald Trump, and told her he enjoyed it “because it made him feel like Bill Clinton.”

“She alleges that on several occasions she objected, clearly, that he did not respect those objections,” Kelton said. 

Dunphy also made tape recordings of some of her exchanges with Giuliani, who, when she was hired in January 2019, was the private attorney of then-President Trump.

In fact, when she asked him if his firm had a human resources department where she could file a complaint he reportedly laughed it off. Giuliani said that he did not have a human resources department, the suit charges, and bragged that no one would ever sue him because he was connected to then-President Trump, and he had private investigators who would punish anyone who complained, according to the lawsuit.

There was also the matter of his reportedly inappropriate comments when he had been drinking — comments recorded by Dunphy. 

“Making all kinds of extremely vulgar, sexual remarks, racist remarks. Comments about the genitalia of Jewish men, for example. Comments about different ethnic groups. Comments about the bodies of prominent women like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, imagining them in sexual scenarios,” Kelton said.

In published reports, Giuliani’s attorney had said he “categorically denies all of the allegations of this frivolous complaint.” However, the attorney did not comment on whether his client and Dunphy were romantically entangled.

Ted Goodman, a political and communications advisor to Giuliani, released the following statement on Monday evening:

“Mayor Rudy Giuliani unequivocally denies the allegations raised by Ms. Dunphy and every news outlet covering this story must include the fact that an ex-partner accused her of being, ‘an escort that fleeces wealthy men.’ He claimed she’s taken part in ‘prior schemes to defraud high net-worth men,’ according to a 2016 New York Post story. He also claimed she, ‘bragged about extorting $5 million’ from the son of a successful Wall Street investor, with a fake rape claim in 2011. Mayor Giuliani’s lifetime of public service speaks for itself and he will pursue all available remedies and counterclaims,” Goodman said.

The suit also claims Giuliani gave Dunphy access to more than 23,000 of his emails, some allegedly containing classified and privileged exchanges with then-President Trump, his family, secretaries of state, and former attorneys general.

Marcia Kramer

Marcia Kramer joined CBS2 in 1990 as an investigative and political reporter. Prior to CBS2, she was the City Hall bureau chief at the New York Daily News.