By James Fishback owes his former hedge fund employer, Greenlight Capital, more than $1.3 million, a federal Judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer entered a final judgment ordering the Florida gubernatorial candidate to pay Greenlight and its affiliate, DME Capital Management, more than $1.31 million in attorneys’ fees and costs, closing out a long-running fee dispute stemming from Fishback’s contentious split from the firm.
The figure does not include post-judgment interest, which Greenlight is separately entitled to collect.
The judgment, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, includes $1,198,464.02 in fees and $120,052.01 in costs. It formalizes a June 23 order in which Engelmayer sided largely with Greenlight after the firm sought roughly $1.9 million and Fishback’s attorneys argued the request was excessive.
Engelmayer trimmed the total but said Fishback’s conduct in dragging out the litigation partly justified the bulk of the award. He called Fishback’s claim that he would have settled earlier “legally and factually meritless,” adding that while the case was “relatively complex,” it “did not present novel or cutting-edge issues.”
The ruling is the latest financial blow in Greenlight’s yearslong legal fight with Fishback, a former research analyst at the firm. Greenlight sued him after his 2023 departure, accusing him of misrepresenting his role there — he claimed the title “head of macro,” which Greenlight says never existed — while secretly building his own investment firm, Azoria Capital, using confidential Greenlight portfolio information.
Fishback has since admitted to sharing that data.
The new judgment adds to a mounting pile of legal debt. A federal Magistrate Judge in January ordered Fishback to turn over Azoria stock certificates and dozens of personal luxury purchases to the U.S. Marshals Service to satisfy a separate $229,000 judgment, which Fishback has said he won’t pay.
Azoria trustees voted to liquidate the company’s only two exchange-traded funds in December, just months after their launch, after the products attracted little investor money.
He also lost an arbitration bid against Greenlight this Spring after failing to participate in the case. And his former law firm, Abrams Fensterman, moved to withdraw from representing him over more than $150,000 in unpaid bills.
The fee ruling comes as Fishback presses forward with a campaign for Governor in the Aug. 18 Republican Primary, where he badly trails front-runner U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds in both polling and fundraising. Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and former House Speaker Paul Renner are also in the crowded race.
Fishback notched a rare legal win late last month, when Leon County Judge David Frank sided with him in a lawsuit Collins brought to boot him from the race on residency grounds. Collins argued Fishback failed to meet Florida’s seven-year residency requirement for Governor, pointing to a 2020 vote Fishback cast in Washington, D.C., and a homestead exemption he later claimed on a D.C. condo.
Fishback admitted during an eight-hour hearing that he had indeed voted in D.C. in 2020 and held the homestead exemption — reversing months of denials. But Frank found his sworn testimony that he never intended to abandon Florida residency legally sufficient, since Collins’ side offered no witness to directly contradict it.
Frank noted the D.C. paperwork could still expose Fishback to separate legal consequences.
Collins has not ruled out an appeal. The voting violation carries penalties of up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines, while the homestead infraction is punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, plus repayment with interest and tax penalties.
Fishback’s legal troubles don’t end there. A former debate champion who says Fishback’s nonprofit, Incubate Debate, still owes her $8,000 in promised scholarship money filed a small claims suit in Broward County last week.
Significantly underfunded compared with others in the race, Fishback has repeatedly made headlines for racist, antisemitic and xenophobic campaign messaging.
A frequent target has been Donalds, a Black man whom he’s called a “slave” to his donors and corporate interests, a “DEI Republican” and “By’rone.” Following the residency hearing, Fishback again invoked Donalds’ race while announcing a proposal, named for Donalds, to eliminate Florida’s three-day waiting period on firearm purchases.
Fishback has also appeared on a podcast alongside self-described admirers of Adolf Hitler and has rubbed elbows with other members of the so-called “manosphere” who traffic in misogynistic, antisemitic and racist rhetoric.
Court filings also revealed that Fishback, aided by campaign Treasurer Alex Munguia — one of two witnesses, along with Fishback’s father, to testify in his defense at the residency hearing — directed the use of fake social media accounts to plant tips and inflate his media coverage.
Eleven Republicans qualified for Governor this cycle, but the race isn’t close, according to recent polling from the Tyson Group. The survey showed Donalds at 48% support, with Collins at 9%, Fishback at 8% and Renner at 4%.
The latest polling from FiftyPlusOne has Donalds at 50%, compared with 16% for Collins, 12% for Fishback and 4% for Renner. Other surveys last month found Donalds with between 32% and 50% of the GOP vote, with Fishback holding no more than a 13% share.
On the Democratic side, former U.S. Rep. David Jolly is widely considered the likely nominee.
The Primary is Aug. 18, followed by the General Election on Nov. 3.
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