New York Post - March 15, 20002
RAKE-IT-IN RUDY NOW A $10M MAN By DAVID SEIFMAN
March 15, 2002 -- Rudy Giuliani - who never earned more than $195,000 a year at City Hall - may pull in $10 million this year on the speaking circuit, The Post has learned.
"It's really unbelievable," said one friend.
"The demand for him is amazing. He's turning away offers."
Giuliani's agent, the Washington Speakers Bureau, charges a minimum of $100,000 for each of his 40- to 60-minute addresses.
But that price tag hasn't deterred corporate titans from lining up to hear what the ex-mayor has to say about managing the nation's largest city for eight years, including four difficult months following the attack on the World Trade Center.
Giuliani, honored as Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2001, has already delivered about 20 speeches since leaving office on Dec. 31, sources said.
One insider said he has donated proceeds from four or five events to the Twin Towers Fund, which benefits families of cops and firefighters who died at the trade center.
If he continues talking at that pace, Giuliani should hit the $10 million mark this year.
That's quite a leap from his last government salary of $195,000.
During divorce proceedings last year, Giuliani's lawyer claimed the mayor's bank account was nearly empty and he couldn't afford his own place.
The Washington Speakers Bureau was so eager to show off its hottest newest client that it threw a celebrity-studded bash for Giuliani in Washington on March 5.
Bernard Kerik, Giuliani's police commissioner, and Thomas Von Essen, the former fire commissioner, are also represented by Washington Speakers.
Kerik's fee is listed as $25,000 to $39,999, the same as columnist Dave Barry and former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Von Essen gets $15,000 to $24,999, putting him in a league with writers Calvin Trillin and Art Buchwald.
In addition to his speaking career, Giuliani is also trying to grow his own consulting firm, Giuliani & Partners.
Insiders say the firm is trying to carefully cultivate big-league clients and is screening those that might raise red flags - should he want to return to public life again someday.
When he first ran for office in 1989, Giuliani found himself being grilled about why he worked at a law firm that had represented Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega.
Giuliani had no other connection to the dictator and immediately announced he would do whatever was necessary to "disassociate myself from him."