Part 105: The Legal Drama of Tom Girardi and Erika Jayne – When Reality TV Meets The Federal Courthouse

Published August 16, 2024

Aug 16, 2024

Photo of the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles as the sunsets over the skyscrapers reflecting in downtown by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The white noise comes on again in the court chambers on the eight floor of the glistening glass and metal First Street U.S. Courthouse. Generated so you can’t hear what the judge is discussing in sidebar with the government attorney’s and the federal public defenders. Defendant Thomas Girardi has long since run out of funds to afford the private attorney’s that have graced other trials for less downfallen defendants. Girardi is nearly alone, other than a few family members, the man who once oversaw 40 attorney’s at the Girardi & Keese, dissolved in 2021. Between 2010 and 2020, prosecutors explain, the firm grossed over $1 billion dollars into its accounts. As one witness testified, a fellow attorney, Girardi was the “godfather of our industry” known for hosting lavish parties for smaller attorney’s in order to get cases referred to his law firm.

Girardi’s famous, and still televised spouse Erika Jayne, still stars on Bravo TV’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which the disbarred attorney would make cameo appearances on throughout his wife’s role beginning in 2015. Jayne recently finished her residency “'Bet It All on Blonde’” at House of Blues at Mandalay Bay…in partnership with Live Nation, [which] ran for a dozen performances and showcased a combination of her top hits and newly released records.” The former cocktail waitress, she is Girardi’s third wife, now perhaps even more famous than the so-called Erin Brockovich case against Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) in the Mojave desert town of Hinkley. Neither Girardi has shown much remorse, with prosecutors explaining that the absent Jayne’s success was bankrolled through a firm EJ Global with more than $25 million dollars in stolen client money. Erika Girardi, unlike her husband, does not face four federal felony counts of wire fraud.

An aged defendant, Girardi now 85, a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, where he received his BA and JD, and the New York University School of Law, where he completed a Master of Laws; Girardi has little chance of credibly claiming any ignorance of the law as an excuse. By Day 6, after 3 prosecution charged witnesses, the final witness is brought to tears over the questioning about how Girardi allegedly defrauded her out of a settlement over her now deceased son, paralyzed in a car accident in which the baby seat failed. Ruled competent to stand trial, it was later revealed, that in the run-up to the Los Angeles Times exposé in 2020 that ruined him, Girardi had called Times journalists Matt Hamilton and Harriet Ryan leaving voicemails protesting their reporting, “Was it a ploy?” the paper of record headlined.

These recordings, incriminating though they may be, plus or minus Girardi’s claim made to Hamilton and Ryan that “I’ve been a pal of that newspaper for 100 years,” the end seems near for the legal industry titan. Federal prosecutors have an incredibly high success rate, a point emphasized by the Pew Research Center in noting that in 2022 for example, out of 71,954 defendants in federal criminal cases, only 290, “about 0.4% – went to trial and were acquitted” and “1,379 went to trial and were found guilty (1.9%).” The vast majority, 89.5% plead guilty, “while another 8.2% had their case dismissed at some point in the judicial process, according to the data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.” In Los Angeles, and indeed nationwide, a trip to before a federal judge almost always means a guilty verdict. Conviction rates in California Superior courts are slightly lower, with more felonies being reduced to misdemeanors, and more “acquittal, dismissal, or transfers.”

Certainly, it seems unlikely, that Tom Girardi who has been diagnosed with dementia will see as much sentencing time as say former Los Angeles City Councilman José Huizar, who after going to trial was given a 13.5 years sentence, with his reporting to Federal penitentiary delayed until August 30 following his January sentencing for “undisclosed medical convictions.” Even with a guilty verdict, it’s no sure thing that Girardi will see the inside of a prison cell, with for example former LA City Councilman and Supervisor, Mark Ridley-Thomas still free pending appeal of his 3.5 year sentence after being “found guilty of seven felony counts -- bribery, conspiracy, four counts of honest services wire fraud, and one count of honest services mail fraud.” So it’s almost comical that Girardi, day-after-day appears in court, shriveled, pudgy, and with dirty white sneakers only to leave each day with escort into a tinted grey car with driver, all smiles.

Girardi famously told Assistant U.S. Atty. Ali Moghaddas, “Fuck you,” during his competency hearing. According to Dr. Helena Chui, chairwoman of the USC Keck School of Medicine Neurology department, Girardi has “limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, or LATE, a type of dementia that is now moderately severe.” Still Girardi seems to be assisting in his own defense, taking notes and as his final charged victim testified, appearing sullen, and looking down with deep remorse. Clearly, Girardi is certainly still there to some degree, even as it increasingly seems unlikely that even if convicted and sentenced, he’ll be locked-up on a timely basis on a verdict that his attorney’s seem most likely to appeal. Girardi’s federal public defenders seem to be doing their best to delay this outcome, with repeated remonstrations from U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton to not waste the jury’s time with unclear questioning.

Some people make their own reality TV shows, and some like Erika Jayne, aged 53, who produced glossy semi-hits like “XXPEN$IVE” and “Painkillr” as part of her purchased music career seem to escape justice. Assuredly, Jayne’s claimed ignorance about where the funds for flashy productions came from seem deliberately oblivious. The quasi-celebrity factor in the Girardi trial is real, with two reporters in the hallway wondering openly why more readership traffic hadn’t been driven to their websites. So as the news industry in Los Angeles and elsewhere seems to be in decline, it’s almost an oddity to see the legal reporters, for publications often accessible only via subscription to those in the legal field working away to produce timely reports on this trial that seems almost certain to be ellipse by further delays. For her part, Jayne has ran into some recent trouble with a fashion designer who she allegedly stiffed and accusations, that not only was the State Bar of California compromised, which ignored voluminous complaints against Tom Girardi, but that the Secret Service in Los Angeles just might be questionable as well. Truly, a shockingly disturbing allegation.

In the latest filing in that Federal case, with the next hearing set for September 23, 2024, delivered to the court on August 5, lawyers for the plaintiff Christopher Psalia assert regarding 25-year veteran and Special Agency in Charge of the Los Angeles field office Robert Savage: “These circumstantial facts support that there was a quid pro quo between Tom Girardi and Savage, in exchange for Tom Girardi agreeing to represent Savage and his wife in the Volkswagen case and promise to get $100,000 in the Volkswagen litigation, that Savage agreed to commence the Secret Service investigation into Plaintiff.” Tom Girardi is not named in that case, and both Girardi and his Chief Financial Officer Christopher Kamon face a separate fraud trial in relation to defrauding the victims of the Indonesian Lion Air jet crash next year in Chicago. Separately, Savage is entangled in defamation litigation over fabricated text messages in regard to Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joseph Biden, with the younger Bidens stating about Savage, “‘There is a fabricated conversation between me and a supposed Secret Service agent in a hotel room in Los Angeles’ Biden said. ‘He has never met me, he has never had any conversation with me.’”

Just how far does the hocus pocus in the Girardi-verse go? Much less the California State Bar and the U.S. Secret Service, and will Girardi, much less his estranged spouse and their associates ever face full justice for their crimes. For her part, Kimberly Archie, the Girardi & Keese whistleblower who has publicly gone to battle against the Girardi’s remains optimistic, producing a podcast with Chris Hansen of “To Catch A Predator” that after releasing three episodes, has now produced 2 trial updates. Despite the fact that as Archie says, Girardi “had every level of law enforcement, California Bar, politicians, you know the banks, legal lending companies, the people that worked for him, the legal community, the plaintiff’s bar…You know I think, I think about today, one of the most shocking things at this point, where are Tom’s friends, where are all the people that came to his parties and you know bragged to me that they knew Tom and half of them Tom didn’t even know who they were when I would ask?” Archie continues, “where are they during this trial?” Released from the prosecution’s witness list, the former Girardi & Keese employee was quickly served a defense subpoena to keep her out of the courtroom.

Archie sees a “little glimmer of hope” in the law community press covering this trial. Girardi who once roosted over the Rose Bowl in a 5-acre mansion has now been abandoned. Seven days into the trial, all that’s left from the prosecution’s witness list is a cross-examination by federal public defenders of IRS Criminal Division “Case Agent” Ryan Robeson, who audited the books and created charts showing how Girardi siphoned client funds for spending on luxury cars, jewelry, country club memberships and even a Gulfstream jet. Although Robeson wasn’t able to put a precise dollar amount on the total, estimating the more than 60% of the $26,705,44 dollars withdraw by Girardi from the firm’s operating account from 2010 to 2020 went to spending for Girardi himself versus for other attorney’s at the firm. So far, only one defense witness, Dr. Helena Chiu, the Chairwoman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine has testified, matched by a counter-witness for the prosecution, it’s believed that Girardi’s daughter Jennifer Crane will testify in defense of Girardi.

The defense has declined to specify who else will testify in defense of Girardi. I had attended the podcast release party for the series along with Archie and other victims. The pain they felt was evident from having being treated, with one victim of benzene poisoning at Lockheed Martin describing what Girardi did as a “Holocaust.” The producer had intentionally decided to leave in the strong reference to accent just how callous the deception had been toward victims who had sought justice at every-level only to be snuffed by Girardi and his associates. At one point, near homelessness, the man had wondered when the “politicians” who had helped Girardi would be held to account. How do you hold a grifter at the highest-level to account? Much less those who had enabled him for years to avoid accountability. Girardi in court doesn’t meet the common example of a hardened criminal. One morning I had walked into the building only to encounter multiple sheriff’s deputies and one FBI agent wearing a T-shirt, his fully tattooed arms exposed.

The defense claims that in one episode Girardi seemed flustered at the security checkpoint, unsure of where he was despite his expertise in the personal injury legal profession. On the first day of the trial, the new public affairs officer for the Internal Revenue Service in Los Angeles had come to introduce himself, a former Marine, after speaking with the man, we parted with the traditional, “Semper Fi,” always loyal, always faithful. The Girardi’s seemed like the opposite, with the defense seeking to explain away the estrangement of Erika Jayne as something other than the end of a marriage of convenience. The two had met at Chasen’s restaurant in 1998, marrying a year later in 1999, with a 33-year age gap, Jayne told People Magazine, “Everyone thought I was marrying him to have a baby and lock down the money, as ugly as that sounds." Archie in the second trial update podcast, doesn’t believe that the shamelessness of Jayne’s music and entertainment career will factor into the trial even as the funding of it has been featured in charts entered into evidence.

Nor do any fans seem to have turned out to want to save Tom Girardi from the inevitable. Nonetheless, Girardi has left court every day with a smile, with one reporter asking him how he was doing on the first day only to be met with a smile and a nod. For their part, the jury of 5 men and 7 women have seemed determined and focused, with one teacher and one police officer serving on the jury. The complexity of the allegations underpinning the four wire fraud charges, and of the “GK” operation including the functioning doesn’t seem too complicated, with a number of jurors taking notes. In jury selection, only a few had ever heard of the Girardi’s much less watched any Bravo. Keese had long ago left the firm with Girardi keeping his name on it. “RHOBH” as its acronym goes, streamed on NBC’s Peacock the series promises in its 13th season: “In the aftermath of last season’s turbulent ending, the women find themselves attempting to navigate their fractured friend group.” One of the ladies is supposed to enlist “a spiritual guru to help them find their way back, the ladies confront their issues head on and begin to mend hurt feelings.”

Tom Girardi assuredly did more than hurt feelings. In their opening, Girardi’s federal public defender attempted to characterize him as “the most successful lawyer in the room,” a notion that left federal prosecutor Ali Moghaddas, a former Quinn Emmanual Associate shaking his head. Girardi may have amassed great wealth, but it’s escaped him now, and absent salvation by the jury, it seems assured that Moghaddas and his partner Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Paetty coming away with a long delayed win for the victims. In his opening Paetty, told the court about Girardi’s grift: “He treated that client trust account like a personal piggy bank,” describing how one case had been settled for $53 million, “[Girardi] told them it was $7 million…and it just got worse from there.” If there’s any uncertainty in just how much money has gone missing, it’s because there’s so much of it gone. The cult of wealth is strong in Los Angeles, people believe that money sets them free, but in Girardi’s case, it’s possible that the end just might be the opposite, or at least we can hope, watching the dour man now silently reckoning with his fate.

Link: Former Girardi client says attorney’s obfuscations were like ‘reopening wounds that we were trying to close’

Link: Bravo TV - Erika Jayne Profile

Link: Lawyer Tom Girardi found competent to face criminal fraud trial

Link: Tom Girardi left dozens of voicemails for The Times and a reporter investigating him. Was it a ploy?

Link: Fewer than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted in 2022

Link: California’s Criminal Courts

Link: Jose Huizar wins delay in date to begin prison sentence

Link: Mark Ridley-Thomas to remain free during appeal

Link: Tom Girardi curses at prosecutor as judge weighs the ex-attorney’s competency to stand trial

Link: State Bar of California Releases Reports Detailing Past Unethical Conduct in Handling Girardi Complaints

Link: Erika Jayne Girardi loses bid to strike Secret Service conspiracy lawsuit

Link: Christopher Psalia vs. Erika Girardi AKA Erika Jayne et. al, August 5, 2024 Filing