Rudy Giuliani Lawsuit Moves Forward: Judge Lets Sexual Assault and $2 Million Pardon Allegations Proceed

Published June 18, 2026

Updated June 18, 2026

A New York judge has let Noelle Dunphy's civil case against Rudy Giuliani proceed, but the ruling decided a narrow legal question, not the truth of the accusations.

By Steve Levine

Editor-in-Chief · 8 min read

Tweet

Share

A New York judge has refused to throw out the civil lawsuit that Noelle Dunphy filed against Rudy Giuliani, clearing the way for her sexual assault, wage, contract, and related claims to move into the next stage of litigation. In a decision dated March 30, 2026, Justice Nicholas W. Moyne of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, denied the defendants' motion to dismiss the amended complaint. The case, captioned Noelle Dunphy v. Rudolph W. Giuliani, et al., carries Index No. 650033/2023 and remains active.

Important: The allegations described in this article are disputed claims made in a civil lawsuit. The court's ruling on the motion to dismiss was not a determination that the allegations are true. Giuliani denies wrongdoing.

Judge Refuses to Dismiss the Lawsuit

To understand what the March 2026 decision did and did not do, it helps to understand what a motion to dismiss is. Early in a civil case, before any witnesses are deposed and before either side hands over documents, a defendant can ask the court to dismiss the complaint on the ground that, even if everything the plaintiff says is assumed to be true, the law still does not give the plaintiff a valid claim. At that stage the judge is not weighing evidence or deciding who is telling the truth. The judge is testing whether the written allegations, read in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, are legally sufficient to go forward.

That distinction is the whole story here. By denying the motion, Justice Moyne ruled that Dunphy's amended complaint stated claims that are legally adequate to proceed. The court did not find that her factual allegations are true, did not find Giuliani liable, and did not enter any judgment against him. Surviving a motion to dismiss is a procedural milestone, not a verdict. Factual disputes and questions of credibility are left for later phases of the case, where they can be addressed through discovery, additional motions, or a trial.

The decision also handled the practical next steps. It directed the defendants to answer the amended complaint within 20 days after service of notice of entry of the decision, and it directed the parties to continue discovery. In plain terms, the case keeps going, and the defendants now have to respond formally to the allegations rather than seeking to end the matter at the threshold.

What Noelle Dunphy Alleges

According to the complaint, Giuliani hired Dunphy in January 2019 to serve as his director of business development and to handle executive-assistant work such as travel, communications, and public relations. The complaint alleges she was promised a salary of $1 million per year plus reimbursement of expenses. It further alleges that Giuliani told her the compensation would have to be deferred and her employment kept secret while his divorce was pending, on the claim that the arrangement was temporary and would end once the divorce was finalized.

Dunphy alleges that the promised pay largely never arrived. The lawsuit claims she received only limited cash payments and was never paid most of what she says she was owed for roughly two years of work. Beyond the wage dispute, the complaint alleges that Giuliani used his positions as her employer and her purported attorney to pressure and coerce her sexually, and that she was subjected to sexual assault, sexual harassment, and a hostile work environment. The complaint seeks at least $10 million in damages.

Giuliani has denied wrongdoing and has disputed Dunphy's characterization of both their relationship and the employment arrangement. None of these allegations has been proven, and the court's decision did not resolve them. They remain contested claims that Dunphy would have to support with evidence as the case moves forward.

The Allegation Concerning $2 Million Presidential Pardons

One allegation in the complaint has drawn particular attention because of its political subject matter, and it calls for careful handling. According to the complaint, Giuliani told Dunphy that he was selling presidential pardons for $2 million and that the proceeds would be divided with then-President Donald Trump. The complaint also alleges that Giuliani said people seeking pardons should avoid the normal process through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, because correspondence sent to that office could become publicly accessible. This appears in paragraph 132 of the verified complaint filed on May 15, 2023.

It is essential to be precise about what this is. Dunphy's complaint alleges that Giuliani told her he was "selling pardons for $2 million" and would divide the proceeds with Trump. The allegation has not been established as fact in this civil case. The court's decision allowing the lawsuit to proceed did not find that any pardons were sold, and it did not adjudicate the truth of paragraph 132. The ruling concerned whether Dunphy's claims were adequately pleaded, not whether her account of any specific conversation actually occurred.

Several points follow from that. Trump is not a defendant in this lawsuit. The case does not establish that Trump sold pardons, and it does not establish that Giuliani sold pardons. Neither man has been criminally charged in this matter over the alleged conduct, and this civil case does not decide questions of criminal liability. The allegation is significant because of who it concerns, but its presence in a complaint is not proof, and it should not be read as anything more than an unproven claim that one of the parties disputes.

The $2 million figure in Dunphy's complaint does echo separate reporting from around the end of the Trump administration, which is worth noting carefully. In January 2021, The New York Times reported on a market for access to pardons in Trump's final days and recounted that a former CIA officer, John Kiriakou, said one of Giuliani's associates told him Giuliani could help secure a pardon for $2 million, an offer Kiriakou said he turned down. According to that reporting, an acquaintance who feared pardons were being sold alerted the FBI. Giuliani disputed that characterization and told the Times he did not work on clemency cases because of his representation of Trump. That account is journalism, not a court finding, and like Dunphy's allegation it does not establish that any pardon was sold. The Times also reported that no evidence had emerged that Trump or Giuliani were ever paid for a pardon.

What Rudy Giuliani Argued

The defense sought dismissal of the amended complaint, which is the standard way a defendant tries to end a case before discovery. As reflected in the decision, the defendants contended that the claims were not legally sufficient to proceed. Giuliani has consistently denied wrongdoing and has disputed Dunphy's description of their relationship and the terms of her employment, including whether the arrangement she describes existed as alleged.

Because a motion to dismiss is decided on the pleadings rather than on evidence, the court's task was not to choose between the two sides' competing accounts. It was to determine whether, accepting Dunphy's allegations as true for purposes of the motion, the complaint set out claims the law recognizes. The defense did not prevail on that question, which is why the case continues. The defendants will now have the opportunity to contest the allegations on the merits as the litigation develops.

Why the Court Allowed the Claims to Proceed

The reasoning behind a denial of a motion to dismiss follows a well-established principle of civil procedure. On such a motion, a court generally must accept the plaintiff's well-pleaded factual allegations as true and give the plaintiff the benefit of every favorable inference. The question is not whether the plaintiff will ultimately win, but whether the plaintiff has stated a claim at all. Disputes over what really happened, and over which witnesses to believe, are normally not the kind of thing a court can resolve against a plaintiff at this early stage.

Applying that standard, the court concluded that Dunphy's amended complaint was legally sufficient to move past the pleading stage. That conclusion says nothing about the strength of the evidence on either side. It simply means the allegations, taken at face value for purposes of the motion, describe claims that the law permits a plaintiff to pursue. Whether those claims hold up will depend on what the evidence shows later in the case.

A Brief Detour Through Federal Court

The procedural history includes a short stop in federal court. In 2023, the action was briefly removed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, where it was docketed as Dunphy v. Giuliani, Case No. 1:23-cv-05026. It was then returned to New York state court. The active and controlling docket is the New York state case, Index No. 650033/2023, and that is the proceeding in which the March 2026 decision was issued. Readers tracking the case should focus on the state docket, since the federal removal was short-lived and the matter now lives in the Supreme Court, New York County.

The Claims in the Lawsuit

The complaint sets out a long list of causes of action. Rather than walk through each count, it is enough to group them into the principal categories the lawsuit asserts:

• Gender-motivated violence under New York City law
• Assault and battery
• Sexual harassment and gender discrimination
• Hostile work environment
• Retaliation
• Breach of contract
• Unpaid wages and overtime
• Wage-notice and wage-statement violations
• Unjust enrichment
• Breach of fiduciary duty connected to the alleged attorney-client relationship
• New York State and New York City human-rights claims

It bears repeating that allowing these claims to survive dismissal does not mean Dunphy will ultimately prevail on any of them. It means only that she is entitled to try to prove them. Each claim still has to be supported by evidence and can be challenged again at later stages, including on a motion for summary judgment or at trial.

What Happens Next

With the motion to dismiss denied, the immediate step is for the defendants to file an answer to the amended complaint within 20 days of notice of entry, and for the parties to continue discovery. Discovery is the fact-gathering phase, and it can include written questions, requests for documents, and depositions in which witnesses answer questions under oath. After discovery, a case like this may see summary-judgment motions, which ask the court to decide claims based on the developed record, and many civil cases also involve settlement discussions at some point. If the case is not otherwise resolved, it could eventually go to trial.

None of those outcomes is certain. The path a case takes depends on the evidence, the parties' decisions, and the court's calendar. Anyone following the matter should rely on the court docket for confirmed dates rather than assuming any particular next step.

Is This a Class Action or Settlement?

No. This is an individual civil lawsuit brought by one person, Noelle Dunphy, against Rudy Giuliani and related entities. It is not a class action. There is no settlement fund, there is no claim form, and members of the public are not eligible for any payment through this case. We cover this story as legal news because the procedural ruling is notable, not because it offers any claim opportunity. If you are looking for settlements you can actually file a claim in, those are tracked separately on our open class action settlements page.

Current Case Status

• Status: Active
• Court: New York Supreme Court, New York County
• Case: Dunphy v. Giuliani
• Index No.: 650033/2023
• Latest major ruling: Motion to dismiss denied
• Decision date: March 30, 2026
• Decision citation: Dunphy v. Giuliani, 2026 NY Slip Op 31303(U)
• Settlement: None publicly announced
• Claim form: None

Read the Complaint

You can read Noelle Dunphy's verified complaint below. It is a court filing that sets out her allegations only. The allegations in it are unproven, the defendants dispute them, and the court's denial of the motion to dismiss was not a finding that any allegation is true.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Coverage

• Newsom v. Trump, explained, another individual civil case we have broken down without treating it as a class action
• A fact-based update on Doe v. Bonnell, a similar single-plaintiff civil lawsuit at the docket stage
• Latest class action and legal news

Sources

About This Page