Erika Jayne's Ex Tom Girardi Found Guilty on 4 Counts of Wire Fraud
Tom Girardi's legal woes continue.
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne's estranged husband was found guilty on four counts of wire fraud Aug. 27 in the grand jury trial linked to his embezzlement schemes that ran for 10-years and allowed him to steal at least $15 million in settlement funds from four clients, according to NBC News.
Girardi, who pleaded not guilty to the charges last year, currently has his sentencing scheduled for Dec. 6.
E! News has reached out to reps for both Jayne and Girardi for comment, but has not heard back at this time.
In the lawsuit against the former litigator who was a partner and owner of Girardi Keese, obtained by E! News, four previous clients claimed that Girardi had stolen the millions from their injury settlement funds.
They claimed that he had spent that money "paying other Girardi Keese clients whose own settlement funds previously had been misappropriated, paying Girardi Keese's payroll, and paying other Girardi Keese's expenses, including its American Express Card bills encompassing charges" that were Girardi's personal expenses.
According to Girardi's 2023 indictment, beginning at least as early as 2010 and continuing through 2020, the 85-year-old and his firm's CFO Christopher Kazuo Kamon—who is being tried separately—"knowingly and with intent to defraud, devised, participated in, and executed a scheme to defraud victim clients" who had sought legal services from the law firm.
The indictment also detailed how the duo went about the embezzlement, explaining they would negotiate a settlement on behalf of a client, but would then "misrepresent, conceal and falsely describe to the client the true terms of the settlement," allowing the money to then be "transferred to attorney trust accounts."
Kamon is awaiting his own trial to begin in January 2025, but has pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to the Department of Justice.
Tyler Hatcher, the special-agent-in-charge for the IRS criminal investigation unit, told NBC News that Girardi "exploited his clients' misfortunes on a grand scale."
"His clients sought his help in the wake of significant trauma and injury," he said, "yet he violated their trust to steal from them and fund his own lavish lifestyle, and he will now face the consequences of his action."
As for Jayne, the 53-year-old has not publicly commented on the guilty verdict yet, although she scored her own legal win in 2022 when a judge ruled in her favor confirming that she was not aware of her husband's crimes after two of his clients—who had named her in their lawsuit—were unable to prove she had aided and abetted her ex.
And the reality star—who filed for divorce from Girardi after 21 years of marriage in 2020—has been candid about how his lawsuit had affected her.
"Nothing is making me happy," she said in her Bravo special Erika Jayne: Bet It All on Blonde earlier this year. "Tom's behavior was bad for over three years. The s--t this man did, the fallout is great. His family, he hurt them too."
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