Disgraced attorney Tom Girardi, the ex-husband of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne, used his clients’ money as a “personal piggy bank” while defrauding them out of millions of dollars in settlement funds, a federal court in Los Angeles heard Tuesday.
In one case involving a man seriously injured in a house explosion, Girardi won a massive $53 million settlement but told his victim client the settlement was only for $7 million, jurors were told during opening statements on the first day of a trial expected to last a week.
Girardi, 85, who built a highly regarded law firm after his fight against a California utility giant that inspired the Oscar-winning film Erin Brockovich, is charged with four counts of wire fraud, to which he has pleaded not guilty. A fifth wire fraud charge against him was dismissed last week.
Appearing in court Tuesday in a gray jacket, khaki pants, an open-collared blue shirt and white sneakers, Girardi showed little emotion and instead stared for long periods at the jury of seven men and five women in front of him in the courtroom.
U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton has declared Girardi “competent to stand trial,” despite his dementia diagnosis that his court-appointed attorneys say leaves him mentally unfit to assist in his own defense.
Girardi showed little emotion in the courtroom and was later seen leaving the courtroom wearing a gray jacket, khaki pants, a blue open-collared shirt and white sneakers.
Jayne previously said she no longer speaks to her ex-husband. They are seen in 2016 above
Meanwhile, attorneys pointed the finger at another man, Christopher Kamon, 49, chief financial officer of Girard’s once-prestigious law firm, Girardi Keese, who they say embezzled $50 million from the defendant and his company.
Girardi’s successful career as a prominent Los Angeles attorney came crashing down in 2020 when he was accused of stealing millions in settlements he had won for victims of the 2018 Lion Air plane crash in Indonesia.
The allegations from that crash, which killed 189 people, are the basis for other criminal charges against Girardi that are still pending in Chicago. Girardi has also pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Paetty told the Los Angeles court that between 2010 and 2020, the disgraced lawyer lied to his clients and used their embezzled millions to pay for his own lavish lifestyle of “private jets, luxury cars, expensive jewelry with his third wife, former go-go dancer Jayne, 52, including $20 million to fund her acting career.”
The fake lawyer, who co-founded the now-bankrupt Girardi & Keese, appeared on Bravo’s reality show Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alongside his third wife, Jayne.
The couple were together for 21 years, but their divorce, filed by Jayne shortly after the Lion Air allegations, has been delayed since the law firm filed for bankruptcy in 2021 with more than $100 million in debts.
Girardi, who could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted, was disbarred in 2022 following the charges against him. He remains free on $250,000 bail.
At Tuesday’s trial, prosecutor Paetty told the jury that in 2010, Joe Ruigomez was in the hospital, for his life, after being horribly injured in an explosion at his home.
Girardi went to see Ruigomez “at his darkest hour,” the court was told, showing him and his family a magazine cover depicting him as a hero of the Erin Brokovich case and bragging that he would be their “champion” and win the money the victim needed to rebuild her life.
He won a whopping $53 million, but told the victim’s family the settlement was for $7 million, Paetty said.
“And when $28 million from that settlement landed in the law firm’s trust account, he (Girardi) used it to pay off other clients to whom he owed money and other debts.”
Girardi ‘lied to Riugomez’ and ‘stole millions and millions’ from him and other clients,’ the prosecutor added.
Girardi was disqualified in 2022 following the allegations against him. He remains free on $250,000 bail
Girardi was helped down the stairs as he left the Los Angeles Federal Courthouse on Tuesday.
He used his law firm’s trust fund (set up to deposit funds from successful lawsuit settlements) “as a personal piggy bank, taking money out of it whenever he wanted.”
And when clients in successful lawsuits asked him where their money was, he “lied and used numerous false excuses” about why they hadn’t received their money, Paetty said.
In the three other Los Angeles cases for which Girardi faces charges, his client Jessie Hernandez “never received a cent” from the lawsuit he won for her, the court was told.
Another client, Judy Selberg, received a $500,000 settlement, but Girardi collected more than that in legal fees, Paetty said.
And the $2.5 million settlement Erica Saldana won for injuries in a crash that also involved her husband and son was used to pay one of Girardi’s other clients to whom she owed money, he added.
In concluding his opening statement, Paetty urged the jury to find Girardi guilty of fraud “for defrauding his clients out of money that was rightfully theirs due due to the injuries they suffered.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Paetty told a Los Angeles court Tuesday that between 2010 and 2020 the disgraced lawyer lied to his clients and used their embezzled millions to pay for his own lavish lifestyle.
In the defense’s opening statement, Girardi’s court-appointed attorney, Sam Cross, responded by telling jurors they should not view the case as a Hollywood movie, but “more like a documentary.”
He himself portrayed Girardi as a victim: an aging legal titan with weakened mental faculties who was defrauded by Girardi’s chief financial officer Keese for “stealing $50 million through the company’s back door.”
Cross argued that Girardi, unaware that Kamon was embezzling millions from him and his law firm, “returned $80 million to the company to try to keep it afloat.”
“But it kept sinking because Christopher Kamon was stealing the money.”
Kamon, who is charged with wire fraud similar to Girardi’s but is being tried separately, was arrested in 2022 because, according to Cross, “the game was up and he was trying to flee to the Bahamas, where he had purchased a home for $2.4 million.”
Girardi’s law firm collected “over $1 billion” in settlement fees between 2010 and 2020, Cross said, adding that Kamon “got rich” off those funds, “stealing” millions more than his firm’s $350,000-a-year salary.
Erika spotted with her ex-husband and son Tommy Zizzo when he was still a child
Jayne and Girardi were together for 21 years, but their divorce, filed by the Housewives star shortly after the Lion Air allegations
Kamon – who Cross claims paid his girlfriend “$20,000 a month to go out with him” – took advantage of Girardi’s deteriorating mental state, which prevented him from keeping track of the “chaos” of his company’s business dealings.
Girardi went from being 70 to being 80 to being the head of a highly successful law firm, Cross said, to being “someone who couldn’t remember sending or receiving emails.”
‘The real story is sad… Tom got older… he got sick. He started to lose his rhythm. He lost his way.
‘He has stopped recognising people he meets. Sometimes he wears the same clothes every day. He repeats himself over and over again.
“He’s not just losing his step: he’s falling off a cliff.”
Kamon is also accused of embezzling $10 million from Girardi Reese. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
He claims in court documents that he was “simply following orders” when Girardi asked him to print checks.
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