Judith Giuliani

Judi Ann "Judith" Stish Giuliani^[1][2] (born December 16, 1954)^[3] is a United States medical sales representative, fundraiser, and the wife of former New York City Mayor and 2008 U.S. presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.

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Early life and education

Born Judi Ann Stish^[4][5] she is a native of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, a town known for its coal mining economy. Her family is Roman Catholic;^[6] the surname was originally Sticia and of Northern Italian origin.^[7] Her father, Donald Stish, Sr., is a retired circulation manager for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and her mother, Joan, who is of Polish-American heritage,^[6] is a homemaker. ^[8] She had an older brother, Donald, Jr., who died in 2004, and has a younger sister, Cyndy.^{[1] [6]}

She graduated from Hazleton High School in 1972,^[9] where she participated in the Future Nurses Association, the Literary Society, the tennis and ski clubs, and the Diggers Club, a volunteer service organization.^[4][6] Interested in both the human and scientific aspects of the field,^[10] she attended a two-year nursing program, affiliated with Pennsylvania State University, at St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and graduated with a registered nurse diploma^[9] on September 1, 1974.^[11]

First marriages, medical sales career, motherhood

After graduation Stish worked for a few months^[9] as a nurse^[12][10] at Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania;^[13] it was the only time in her career that she engaged in direct patient care.^[9][1] On December 8, 1974, at the age of 19, she and Jeffrey Ross, a 25-year-old medical supply salesman, eloped to Las Vegas and were married at the Chapel of the Bells.^[12][9] The couple soon relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina where they both^[9] took jobs with U.S. Surgical Corporation^[7] in 1975^[13] selling medical supplies in the Southeast;^[12] Judi Ross^[1] specialized in showing doctors in operating rooms a new surgical stapling method^[14][13]using live, large dogs: she was judged excellent at her work.^[1] She and Ross separated amicably^[15] after four years, and their marriage ended in divorce^[16] which was finalized on November 14, 1979.^[11] The couple had no children.^[14]

Five days later,^[11], on November 19, 1979, Judi Stish Ross married wallpaper salesman Bruce Nathan, whom she had met during her separation from her first husband.^[1] Judi Nathan stopped working around that time; the couple lived in Charlotte for two years,^[1] then moved to Atlanta, Georgia.^[7][8] The Nathans adopted a daughter, Whitney, in March 1985.^[6][17][7] The family moved to Manhattan in 1987 and Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles in 1991.^[7][6] During these years, she briefly worked for DynaMed Surgical in California.^[1] She also converted from Roman Catholicism to Presbyterianism.^[6]

The Nathans' marriage fell apart during the early 1990s and led to a well-publicized divorce case and custody battle^[1][8][9][6] She accused him of physical abuse, and he accused her of physical and mental abuse, along with being an "unfit mother" who kidnapped their daughter and engaged in social opportunism.^[6][1] The Nathans' divorce was finalized in 1992, and she won primary custody of their child ^{[7] [18]} Nathan, who came to prefer the name Judith around this time,^[1] moved back to New York in March 1992,^[6] enrolling her daughter at the Spence School in Manhattan and often living with friends due to her straitened financial circumstances.^[8] Now a single mother, her parents took out a second mortgage to help her pay her legal bills;^[1] she worked as a dental receptionist^[1] and attended New York University computer and business classes^[19] at night and on weekends.^[10] Nathan received a New York nursing license^[7] and began working in 1993^[9] as a pharmaceutical sales representative with the hospital sales division of Bristol-Myers Squibb,^[11][19] selling surgical supplies, anti-depressants, and antibiotics in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn;^[8][9] one of her specialties was infectious diseases.^[20] Around this time she became romantically involved with Woodhull Hospital clinical psychologist Manos Zacharioudakis;^[21] she and her daughter lived with him for four years, until early 1999.^[21] Meanwhile, she became one of Bristol-Myers' top sales managers, ^[22][8] by 1997 managing a 12-person sales team.^[9]

Relationship with and marriage to Giuliani

Judith Nathan met Mayor Giuliani in May 1999 at Club Macanudo, an Upper East Side cigar bar;^[19] they have said they were introduced by a doctor who is a mutual friend.^[19] Giuliani took the initiative in forming an ongoing relationship.^[19] The mayor was still married to and living with his second wife, Donna Hanover, although they had been publicly distant since 1996,^[23] and Nathan was still living with Zacharioudakis.^[1] For most of a year the relationship was kept secret,^[9] and in early 2000 Giuliani arranged for New York Police Department security and chauffering for her.^[24] By March 2000 Giuliani and Nathan were appearing together at public events;^[25] in May 2000 Giuliani publicly acknowledged her as his "very good friend"^[25] and, amidst a flurry of press scrutiny about Nathan, announced he was separating from Hanover.^[26] Later in 2000, Giuliani credited Nathan's nursing background in helping him through his treatment for prostate cancer.^[22] In March 2001, desiring less travel and reduced public visibility, Nathan left Bristol-Myers and became a fund raiser and later the managing director of Changing Our World,^[8] a national fundraising and philanthropic services company headquartered in New York that helps not-for-profit groups raise money for causes such as juvenile blindness and HIV/AIDS in Africa.^[9]

She and Rudy Giuliani became engaged in Paris in November 2002^[27] and they married on May 24, 2003.^[28] The wedding was held at Gracie Mansion and was one of only two performed, to date, by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The reception was for 400 guests including figures from the political, entertainment, and fashion worlds; as a reporter observed of the formal evening nuptials, "All that was lacking was the horse-drawn coach."^[28][1][19] The couple have a $5 million apartment off Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side in Manhattan^[9][1] and a $4 million summer home in The Hamptons^[9] and like to play golf.^[20]

From shortly before their marriage until his presidential campaign began, Rudy Giuliani paid her an average of $125,000 per year for her reported professional value as a speechwriter.^[29]

Fundraising

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Giuliani credited Nathan with coordinating the efforts of the Family Assistance Center at Pier 94, a claim disputed by the first director of New York City's Office of Emergency Management, Jerry Hauer,^[6] but supported by others who say she played a valuable role there that lasted for four months.^[1] She became a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the Twin Towers Fund, appointed by Giuliani,^[6] which raised and distributed $216 million to over 600 families and individuals.^[10] Contributions to the Fund also created the TTF Scholarship Fund and America’s Camp for victim’s children.

Since the occasion of her third marriage, Judith Giuliani has worked to raise funds for St. Vincent's Hospital and Cabrini High School for Girls in New York and for Hurricane Katrina relief in New Orleans.^[20] In March 2005 she received the Community Award from the New York Junior League;^[30] also in that year she and her husband received the Spirit of Cabrini Service Award from the Cabrini Mission Foundation;^[31] and in May 2006 she received the New York University College of Nursing Humanitarian Award.^[32] She left Changing Our World in 2006.^[9] As of 2007 she serves as Executive Director of the Campaign for Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Center in New York, seeking to construct the first Level I trauma center below 14th Street in Manhattan.^[20]

Role in Giuliani presidential campaign

As Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign began in earnest in 2007, Judith Giuliani served as an advisor and fundraiser, but also came in for a new round of intense media attention. Her first marriage to Jeffrey Ross was revealed in the press for the first time,^[11] her educational background was clarified,^[11] she appeared in a Barbara Walters interview on 20/20,^[10] there was press attention concerning estranged relations with Rudy Giuliani's children,^[33] she was accused by animal rights group Friends of Animals as having participated in cruel and unnecessary demonstrations on dogs of U.S. Surgical's stapling technique when she worked there in the late 1970s,^[34][1] there was controversy about her travel requirements^[1] and conflicts with Rudy Giuliani's aides,^[1] and she was portrayed as a social climber and shopaholic.^[35] As a result, her public appearances were scaled back.^[35]

During the March 2007 Walters interview, the Giulianis stated that she would sit in on Cabinet meetings were he elected,^[10] a plan that attracted criticism and that they later backed away from.^[19][36] In September 2007 he interrupted a speech before the National Rifle Association to take a cell phone call from her;^[37] part of a pattern of about forty such incidents where he interrupted meetings to take her calls,^[38] it led to more bad publicity, with political reporter John Fund saying Rudy Giuliani staffers were "appalled" by his behavior and "terrified" of her.^[38]