Hunter Biden agrees to drop a civil lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani’s former attorney Robert Costello, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.
The president’s son formally accused Giuliani and Costello last year of violating computer fraud and data access laws, claiming they manipulated data from his “devices or storage platforms.”
Lawyers for all three parties filed the agreement, which stipulates that Biden agrees to drop the lawsuit and that each man will pay his own legal fees.
The lawsuit initially sought more than $75,000 in damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and other penalties.
“Since Giuliani is bankrupt and agreed to let the case wait when he is ready, there was no point in continuing the case in non-bankruptcy court until that happens,” a person familiar with the filing told NBC on Thursday News.
Giuliani filed for bankruptcy protection in December after being awarded a $148 million judgment for defaming two former election workers in Georgia.
Attorneys for Biden, Rep. Giuliani and Costello did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday’s lawsuit, which U.S. District Judge Jessica Clarke must review before finalizing.
Biden had claimed in September that Giuliani, Giuliani’s companies, Costello and ten unnamed individuals were “among those primarily responsible for what has been described as the ‘total destruction’ of Plaintiff’s digital privacy.”
Biden’s attorney Paul Salvaty argued in the lawsuit that the defendants have “spent an extraordinary amount of time and energy searching for, hacking, tampering with, manipulating, copying, distributing and generally obsessing over data” that was “taken or stolen.” goods. of Biden’s “devices or storage platforms.”
The lawsuit also alleged that Biden’s digital data was “tampered, altered and corrupted” before it was sent to Giuliani and Costello.
Giuliani adviser Ted Goodman said at the time that “Hunter Biden has previously refused to admit ownership of the laptop.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that he is now falsely claiming that his laptop hard drive was tampered with by Mayor Giuliani, given the filthy material and possible evidence of crimes with that thing,” Goodman continued in last year’s statement.
Biden filed the lawsuit in the Central District of California; it later moved to the Southern District of New York.
Costello was an attorney for Giuliani, the former New York mayor and once an attorney for former President Donald Trump, but he sued in September, arguing Giuliani owes him $1.36 million in unpaid legal fees.
Thursday’s filing comes two days after Biden was found guilty of three federal gun-related charges. He has not yet been convicted. He will appear in court in September on separate tax-related charges.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
