Reuters, 4/25/03

NEW YORK -- Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani will be married next month for the third time, to fiancee Judith Nathan in his former official residence in New York, his spokeswoman said Friday.

The couple will be wed on May 24 by Giuliani's successor as mayor, Michael Bloomberg, at Gracie Mansion, spokeswoman Sunny Mindel said.

"They're ecstatic," Mindel told local media. "It's a very happy moment."

Ironically, Giuliani's ex-wife had barred Nathan from visiting Gracie Mansion during a bitter year-long divorce.

Giuliani, a former U.S. prosecutor and mayor of the largest city in the United States for eight years until the end of 2001, began dating Nathan three years ago while he was still married to television presenter and actress Donna Hanover.

Giuliani proposed to Nathan six months ago in a Paris restaurant, presenting her with a Ceylon sapphire ring set in platinum and surrounded by 10 diamonds.

Giuliani, 58, dubbed "America's Mayor" by the U.S. media after he won international acclaim for his leadership of New York in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, oversaw the steepest drop in crime in New York City in decades and now heads a security consulting business.

He divorced his first wife, Regina Peruggi, after 14 years, a marriage that was annulled by the Roman Catholic Church when Giuliani argued Peruggi was his second cousin.

He had two children with Hanover during a 20-year marriage that ended in a $6.8 million settlement 10 months ago.

Nathan, 44, a former nurse who heads a philanthropic consulting firm, is divorced and has a daughter from her previous marriage.

The wedding marks the first time that Bloomberg will exercise his traditional power as mayor to wed friends.