LA disbarred attorney Tom Girardi indicted on embezzlement charges
Tom Girardi, co-founder of the defunct Los Angeles law firm Girardi Keese, was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly embezzling more than $15 million from several clients, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.
The 83-year-old estranged husband of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Erika Jayne, is charged with five counts of wire fraud, each single count carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Girardi, who has Alzheimer's disease, was deemed incompetent to manage his own affairs in June 2021 and was disbarred a year later.
U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada declined to comment on whether Jayne is being investigated as part of the ongoing probe into the Girardi Keese firm.The firm's former chief financial officer, Christopher Kamon, 49, formerly of Encino and Palos Verdes was also charged in the indictment. From 2010 to December 2020, Girardi and Kamon stole more than $15 million that belonged to their clients, according to the indictment.
Also on Wednesday, Girardi, Kamon and former Girardi Keese partner David Lira were indicted in Chicago federal court on fraud charges for allegedly misappropriating more than $3 million in settlement funds intended for relatives of victims killed in the 2018 crash of a Lion Air flight in Indonesia.
"The substantial misappropriation alleged in this indictment compounded the grief and anguish of the clients who lost loved ones in the Lion Air crash," John Lausch, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois,said in a statement. "Attorneys who violate the trust of their clients and breach a fiduciary duty that is paramount to the practice of law must be heldaccountable."
To conceal the theft and misappropriation of settlement money in the Los Angeles case, Girardi and Kamon allegedly lied to clients, stating falsely, among other things, that the funds had not been paid. Girardi also allegedly falsely told clients that settlement proceeds could not be disbursed until certain purported requirements had been met, such as eliminating purported tax obligations, obtaining supposedly necessary authorizations from judges, and satisfying medical liens and other debts.
Girardi became widely known when he was thanked in the credits of the 2001 Oscar-winning film "Erin Brockovich," for which he served as an adviser.
The attorney was part of the legal team when Brockovich successfully sued Pacific Gas & Electric in 1993 for contaminating the groundwater of a small California town.
After he was disbarred last year, the State Bar of California said it had received 205 complaints against Girardi alleging he misappropriated settlement money, abandoned clients and committed other serious ethical violations over the course of his four-decade career.
