Six weeks before Tom Girardi’s criminal trial is set to begin in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors revealed they intend to introduce key evidence: that the disgraced former lawyer allegedly spent more than $25 million of clients’ and law firm’s money on the career of his reality TV star wife.
Until now, Erika Girardi — the main character of Bravo’s “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” — has rarely been mentioned in the federal prosecution of her estranged husband. Tom Girardi — a one-time superstar plaintiffs attorney and influential Democratic Party donor — and his law firm’s former chief financial officer are accused of stealing $15 million from multiple clients in a multi-year scheme.
In a court document filed Friday, prosecutors said they plan to show the jury evidence that Tom Girardi misappropriated far more money from his law firm, Girardi Keyes, and his clients, including $25 million he used to cover “illegal expenses” for EJ Global LLC, a company he created to support his wife’s entertainment career.
“By instructing Girardi Keys accounting personnel to make these payments for the benefit of EJ Global, defendant (Tom) Girardi knowingly and intentionally directed payments received from client funds to the improper personal enrichment of members of his family,” prosecutors wrote in their filing.
No underlying evidence was included in the filing, and it’s unclear how prosecutors plan to prove their claim. They did not name Erika Girardi, nor did they accuse her of wrongdoing or of having knowledge of her husband’s financial activities.
Instead, prosecutors want to refute Tom Girardi’s defense strategy of blaming the CFO by showing that Girardi was also misusing funds to spend on his wife and her career.
Erika Girardi’s attorney, Evan Borges, emphasized that prosecutors did not say the “Housewives” star did anything wrong and that it is “indisputable” that Tom Girardi and his firm handled the finances and accounting of EJ Global LLC.
Borges said he “had no knowledge of the actions of Tom Girardi or Girardi Keyes with respect to client matters or financial matters”, pointing out that a judge had already dismissed the lawsuit against him due to “zero evidence” of his involvement in client matters.
“Years ago, Erika filed for divorce and separated from Tom Girardi, and lives in a rented apartment,” Borges said in a statement. “She has the right to move on with her life.”
Late Friday, Tom Girardi’s legal team from the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a motion to suppress evidence provided to prosecutors by the bankruptcy trustee overseeing Girardi’s law firm, saying a search warrant was never sought to obtain the firm’s internal files and records.
At a hearing Thursday, Girardi’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Charles Snyder, indicated the defense would point the finger at the law firm’s CFO, Christopher Kamon.
Snyder said his client wasn’t the one “running the machine” — rather, it was Kamon, who oversaw the firm’s accounting department and 127 bank accounts.
In a separate federal prosecution, Kamon is accused of allegedly running a “side fraud” in which he embezzled millions from the law firm using fake vendors, then spent the money on home renovations, exotic cars and “female escorts,” according to court papers. Kamon, who has pleaded not guilty in both cases, will face a second trial in October for the so-called side fraud.
Girardi’s legal team plans to cite alleged “side fraud” by the CFO as the cause of the large losses in Girardi Keys’ accounts.
In addition, they plan to argue that Girardi was selling off his personal assets and putting that money back into the firm for salary and expenses to offset the losses he suffered from Kamon’s alleged scheme.
Snyder said in court Thursday that the lies Girardi told his clients about settlement money — what prosecutors called “lulling communications” aimed at deterring them — were not intended to defraud victims but to allow Girardi to get to the bottom of his firm’s finances.
Kamon’s attorney, Michael Severo, shot down the story, saying: “It’s just fiction,” he said in court.
Girardi’s lawyers suggested they would place the blame on Kamon, with prosecutors writing in their filing that evidence of the misappropriation of funds to pay EJ Global’s bills is “essential” to telling “a coherent and complete story of the alleged scheme.”
“To exclude such evidence would serve to distort the truth and give the jury the false impression that Defendant Kamon was the only one responsible for such misappropriations, when the truth is that Defendant Girardi also similarly misappropriated millions of dollars,” prosecutors wrote.
Girardi and Kamon are scheduled to be tried together on Aug. 6. But late Friday, Girardi’s lawyers proposed trying them separately because their defense strategies are “mutually exclusive.”
That is, Girardi’s lawyers believe each man will blame the other. They plan to argue that Kamon wanted to cheat and defraud his boss and exploit an elderly man experiencing cognitive decline. They also anticipate that Kamon will claim he was “pressured” to act on Girardi’s orders, according to court papers.
Whether to try the two men separately or admit evidence of improper payments to Erika Girardi’s limited liability company will be decided by U.S. District Judge Josephine Stanton, who previously deemed Girardi competent to stand trial.
Girardi’s attorneys have argued that the 85-year-old Girardi, who lives in a nursing home’s dementia ward, has no short-term memory and doesn’t recognize them or remember the criminal case against him.
But in his ruling earlier this year, Stanton said Girardi “clearly understands the nature of the allegations against him.”
Girardi was once a giant of the U.S. legal community, winning billions of dollars in settlements for clients over a five-decade career. A landmark payout by Pacific Gas & Electric to residents of Hinkley, California, and its subsequent portrayal in the film “Erin Brockovich” helped boost Girardi’s public reputation. But he had long been an insider in California politics, raising money for governors, senators and local Democratic politicians.
His firm shut down in late 2020 as evidence emerged that he had misappropriated millions of dollars in compensation paid by Boeing to the widows and orphans of those killed in the Indonesian plane crash. The money never reached the families, leading a federal judge in Chicago to freeze Girardi’s assets and refer him for criminal investigation.
Girardi and his firm were forced into bankruptcy, and since then, several former clients have come forward alleging that they did not receive all or part of their settlements.
Girardi and his son-in-law, David Lira, along with Kamon, also face federal criminal charges in Chicago in connection with the misappropriation of $3 million from victims of the Indonesian plane crash.
The trial in Chicago is scheduled for 2025.
