Giuliani hits back at love trysts claims

Rudy Giuliani faced fresh questions about his judgment last night amid claims that trysts with his mistress while he was New York’s Mayor cost taxpayers thousands of dollars.

The Republican presidential frontrunner’s record as New York mayor is already facing closer scrutiny after the indictment this month of his close friend Bernard Kerik, whom Mr Giuliani appointed as the city’s police chief.

According to records obtained by a respected US political website, Mr Giuliani billed New York City for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for his security detail, who accompanied him on trips to Long Island while he visited his mistress.

Many of the security expenses were billed to obscure city agencies, such as the New York City Loft Board, giving the impression somebody did not want the expense claims to be linked to Mr Giuliani. The expense receipts tally the cost of hotel and petrol bills for police detectives who travelled everywhere with Mr Giuliani, according to the website, Politico.com.

Many of the bills were from hotels and petrol stations on Long Island, where Mr Giuliani began visiting Judith Nathan, now his third wife, in the summer of 1999.

Politico reports 11 Long Island trips indicated by credit card receipts. It is not possible to say how many of those visits included official business, but eight of them were not noted on Mr Giuliani’s mayoral schedule. The first trip to Southampton, Long Island, where Ms Nathan had a flat, appear in travel documents running from August 31 to September 1, 1999. Four police officers spent the night in a nearby motel, billing the city $1,016.20. (£485) Mr Giuliani’s schedule listed no events in Long Island that day.

Mr Giuliani received 24-hour police protection when mayor and there is no suggestion he used that detail improperly.

Receipts show Mr Giuliani was in Southampton every weekend in August and the first weekend of September 2001, just before the September 11 terror attacks.

Questions about the expenses were first raised by city auditors late in 2001, when an auditor found $34,000 of travel expenses in the accounts of the Loft Board. When asked for an explanation, Mr Giulaini’s aides refused, citing “security”.

In 2002, New York auditors found $10,054 in security expenses billed to another unlikely agency: the Office for People With Disabilities. Another $29,757 was billed to the Procurement Policy Board, according to the documents obtained by Politico.com.

The latest developments are bound to cause Mr Giuliani further problems in his presidential campaign. A spokeswoman for Giuliani, Sunny Mindel, declined to comment to the website. An aide speaking anonymously said the unorthodox billing procedures were not meant to conceal expenses.

Mr Kerik was indicted on November 9, 2007, on fraud and corruption charges. He surrendered to the FBI after a grand jury indicted him on 16 counts of tax fraud and corruption, which carry a maximum sentence of 147 years. Many of the charges stem from when he was New York police commissioner. Mr Giuliani is also godfather to two of Mr Kerik's children. Mr Kerik had been under investigation for 18 months.

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