How Erica Jayne’s ex Tom Girardi used millionaire clients’ funds as ‘personal piggy banks’ – as Real Housewives’ ‘trial of the century’ kicks off

Disgraced attorney Tom Girardi, the estranged husband of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne, used his clients’ money as a “personal piggy bank” while bilking them of millions of dollars in settlement money, a federal court in Los Angeles heard Tuesday.

In a case involving a man who was seriously injured in a house explosion, Girardi received a whopping $53 million settlement. However, he told his client the settlement was only $7 million, jurors were told during opening statements on the first day of the trial, which is expected to last a week.

Girardi, 85, — who built a world-class law firm after battling 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 count of wire fraud against him was dropped last week.

When Girardi appeared in court Tuesday in a gray jacket, khaki pants, a blue open-collared shirt and white tennis shoes, he showed little emotion and instead stared for a long time at the jury of seven men and five women sitting across from him in the courtroom.

U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton declared Girardi “competent to stand trial” despite his diagnosis of dementia, which his court-appointed attorneys said made him mentally incapable of participating in his own defense.

Lawyers pointed the finger at another man, Christopher Kamon, 49, the 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 top LA lawyer came to an end in 2020 when he was accused of stealing millions in settlements he received for victims of the 2018 Lion Air plane crash in Indonesia.

Claims from that crash — which killed 189 people — are the basis for separate criminal charges against Girardi that are still pending in Chicago. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges as well.

Deputy federal prosecutor 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 fund his own extravagant lifestyle of “private jets, luxury cars, expensive jewelry with his third wife, ex-go-go dancer Jayne, 52, including $20 million to fund her acting career.”

The couple were together for 21 years, but their divorce, which Jayne filed shortly after the Lion Air allegations, has been on hold since the law firm went bankrupt in 2021 with debts of more than $100 million.

Girardi — who faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty — was suspended from his job in 2022 following the charges against him. He remains free on $250,000 bail.

During Tuesday’s trial, prosecutor Paetty told the jury that Joe Ruigomez was hospitalized in 2010, fearing for his life after he was seriously injured in an explosion at his home.

Girardi came to visit Ruigomez “in his darkest hour,” the court was told. He showed him and his family a magazine cover depicting him as the hero in the Erin Brokovich case and boasted that he would be his “champion” and win the money the victim needed to rebuild his life.

While he won a staggering $53 million, he told the victim’s family the settlement was $7 million, Paetty said.

“And when $28 million of that settlement ended up in the law firm’s trust account, he (Girardi) used it to pay off other clients he owed money to and other debts.”

Girardi “lied to Riugomez” and “stole millions and millions” from him and other clients, the prosecutor said.

He used his law firm’s trust fund, which had been set up to hold settlement money from successful lawsuits, “as a personal piggy bank that he could withdraw money from whenever he wanted.”

And when clients in successful lawsuits asked him where their money was, “he lied and made numerous false excuses” about why they had not received their money, Paetty said.

In the other three LA cases Girardi is facing, her client Jessie Hernandez “never received a cent” from the lawsuits he won for her, the court was told.

Another client, Judy Selberg, received a $500,000 settlement, but Girardi charged more than that amount in legal fees, Paetty said.

And the $2.5 million settlement Erica Saldana received for injuries sustained in a crash that also involved her husband and child was used to pay off another of Girardi’s clients to whom he owed money, he added.

Paetty concluded his opening statement by calling on the jury to find Girardi guilty of fraud, “for defrauding his clients of money that was rightfully theirs because of the injuries they suffered.”

In the opening statement for the defense, Girardi’s court-appointed attorney, Sam Cross, responded by telling jurors not to view the case as a Hollywood movie, but “more like a documentary.”

He portrayed Girardi himself as the victim: an elderly lawyer with declining mental faculties who was defrauded by Girardi’s CFO 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, “poured $80 million back into the company to keep the company afloat.

“But it kept going down because Christopher Kamon stole the money.”

Kamon, who is accused of similar fraud as Girardi but is being tried separately, was arrested in 2022 because, according to Cross, “the case was over and he was trying to flee to the Bahamas, where he had bought a house for $2.4 million.”

According to Cross, Girardi’s law firm collected “over a billion dollars” in settlement fees between 2010 and 2020. He claims Kamon “got rich” with those funds, “stealing” millions more than his firm’s $350,000-a-year salary.

Kamon — who Cross claims paid his girlfriend “$20,000 a month to date him” — took advantage of Girardi’s deteriorating mental state, making him unable to keep up with the “chaos” in his business.

Girardi went from being the CEO of a very successful law firm in his early 70s to his 80s, Cross said. He was “someone who couldn’t remember ever sending or receiving emails.”

‘The real story is sad… Tom got old… he got sick. He started losing his pace. He lost track.

“He doesn’t recognize people he knows anymore. He sometimes wears the same clothes every day. He repeats himself over and over again.

“He doesn’t just miss a step, he falls 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 papers that he was “simply following orders” when Girardi asked him to print checks.