Hunter Biden sued Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani’s former attorney Tuesday in Los Angeles, alleging in federal court that they violated computer fraud laws by illegally disseminating data stolen from a laptop purportedly belonging to the president’s son.
Earlier this month, Hunter Biden brought a similar suit in Los Angeles against Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to ex-President Donald Trump, for allegedly unlawfully obtaining tens of thousands of his emails, photos, videos and recordings and spreading them online.
The plaintiff contends in the new lawsuit that Giuliani is primarily responsible for the “total annihilation” of Hunter Biden’s digital privacy. It also names Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor who previously represented Giuliani, as a defendant.
Giuliani and Costello spent years “hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen from” Hunter Biden’s devices, according to the 15-page suit.
Attempts to reach representatives for Giuliani and Costello were unsuccessful.
Hunter Biden’s attorneys allege that the former New York mayor has “not only admitted but bragged” about downloading data from the plaintiff’s purported laptop onto his own computer.
The lawsuit alleges that during an episode of Giuliani’s podcast “America’s Mayor Live” in February, the former mayor “held up a laptop computer on camera and announced: `This belongs to Hunter Biden.”‘
Hunter Biden, who lives in Los Angeles, does not know the precise manner by which Ziegler allegedly obtained his purported computer data, the suit says.
Earlier this year, Hunter Biden’s legal team called on the U.S. Justice Department to open criminal investigations into Ziegler and others who distributed the laptop’s contents.