Judge sentences Tom Girardi to 7 years in prison as he claims all clients were paid
A victim said the disbarred lawyer's wife, Erika Jayne, is using her 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' platform to claim she's a victim and brand Girardi's victims as liars.
Tom Girardi’s public defender told the judge who sentenced him on Tuesday that her decision boiled down to one question: “Should Tom Girardi die in prison?”
U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton never answered yes or no, but according to the lawyer’s warning, the 7 1/4 years she ordered Girardi serve in federal prison assure he will.
The judge acknowledged Girardi’s age and health by reducing his sentencing range under the federal guidelines from 135-168 months to 87-108 months. But she said Girardi, a former legal titan who is married to “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Jayne, deserved no less after he “spent many years robustly living the high life with the victims’ money.”
“Lawyers have great power and great discretion in our society. They sometimes forget that they can be held to account,” Staton said. “When millions of dollars have been stolen from clients over the course of years, a non custodial sentence is not sufficient.”
Girardi, who turned 86 on Tuesday, is to surrender to Bureau of Prisons custody on July 17.
He told Staton before she sentenced him that while “it’s clear that there was significant negligence, everybody got everything they were supposed to get” and he never profited because he doesn’t take a salary, “I just try to help people.”
“So this was unfortunate,” Girardi said.
Girardi’s public defender Sam Cross asked Staton to confine Girardi to the memory care facility where he currently lives and said “there can be no meaningful punishment for him.”
“If he is in prison, you will not know why he is there,” Cross said. “He will, however, know that he is in a cell.”
Cross said Girardi “will not survive a term of years in prison, and his last days will be painful.”
“He will not know why, only that they are,” Cross said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Paetty said Girardi lied a few minutes ago when he said his clients got everything they were due and lied “when he tried to hide behind his mental decline and claim incompetence.” Girardi “thought he could get away with it because he spent a lifetime persuading people to agree with him.”
“But the fact that he hasn’t faced justice for so long is not a mitigating fact in his favor,” Paetty said. “You do not get a pass for being such a successful con artist” that you “evade justice until you’re in your 80s.”
“It is not mitigation to lie so persuasively for so long,” the prosecutor said.
A jury convicted Girardi of four counts of wire fraud on Aug. 27 after a 13-day trial. Staton delayed sentencing and cited a law that indicated Girardi may need to go to prison “or to another suitable facility based on his age and mental status.” She ordered Girardi be evaluated at the Bureau of Prisons’ medical facility in North Carolina, then heard testimony on Monday from doctors and prison officials before determining Girardi’s mental state didn’t warrant hospitalization.
The approximately three-hour hearing on Monday included brief testimony from Girardi, whose pants fell down as he left the witness stand. Deputy Federal Public Defender Charles Snyder said the pants-dropping demonstrates Girardi’s hopeless mental state, but Staton said Girardi’s reaction shows he understood what happened and appeared embarrassed.
“I noticed that he immediately realized that that was happening and reached down to pull them up and then maintained a hold on them,” the judge said, according to Law360 reporter Craig Clough.
Staton said she wasn’t sure who helped Girardi get dressed, but “I understand he’s going to have these difficulties. So you can make a record that, yes, I saw that his pants started to drop, and he grabbed them and pulled them up and was a bit embarrassed by it,” Clough reported.
Staton said on Tuesday that Girardi continues to show he’s “keenly aware that he’s here because he was charged with stealing from his clients.”
She said Girardi recently told a doctor “well, of course,” when reminded that his firm had been disbanded and he’d been disbarred, and sending him to prison “will require him to confront that fact on a daily basis.”
“While it is not as punitive as it would have been when he was in the world of private jets and country clubs, it still has value,” said Staton, a 2010 Barack Obama appointee.
Staton first said Girardi is faking or exaggerating his mental decline when she declared him competent for trial in January 2024. She reiterated that belief in a Dec. 2 order rejecting his motions for new trial and acquittal.
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Paetty reminded Staton on Tuesday that Girardi’s crimes began with the “jaw dropping” lie that a $53 million settlement was only $7 million, and the judge heard from Joseph Ruigomez, whose catastrophic injuries in gas explosion led to the settlement with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in 2013.
“I am not just a victim of financial loss, but someone whose trust has been betrayed by a man that was supposed to be a beacon of justice and help for those like me,” Ruigomez said. “The theft of our settlement has resulted in overwhelming stress, enormous legal costs and the fear of never ending cycle of lawsuits just to receive what rightfully belonged to us all along.”
The other client victims were Josefina Hernandez, who never got anything from a $135,000 settlement reached in May 2020 for injuries related to a defective medical device; Judy Selberg, whose lawsuit over her husband’s deadly boat crash settled for $504,400; and Erika Saldana, whose lawsuit over her son’s catastrophic injuries in a car crash settled for $17 million. The boy died while Saldana was still trying to get her money from Girardi.
Prosecutors believe Girardi victimized many more clients. The California State Bar disclosed in November 2022 that it received 136 complaints about Girardi between August 1982 and before the scandal erupted in December 2020, most involving client trust accounts. Girardi was disbarred in July 2022. For decades, he was one of the most prominent personal injuries and mass torts attorneys in the United States, influential in California judicial appointments and known for his connection to the case that inspired the 2000 film “Erin Brockovich.”
In addition to his charges in California, Girardi was charged federal court in Chicago with eight counts of wire fraud and four counts of contempt of court for embezzling millions of dollars in settlement money with Boeing Inc. from the families of victims of the deadly Lion Air plane crash over the Java Sea. Prosecutors, however, moved last month to dismiss the charges because he’s “already been convicted of stealing from clients” and is turning 86.
Kamon and Girardi’s son-in-law, David Lira, still are scheduled for trial in the case on July 14 before U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland in the Northern District of Illinois.
In court on Tuesday, Hernandez said Girardi’s crimes drove her into bankruptcy “and has affected my relationships and my ability to engage with my community for months each year over the last four years.”
“The system, from the California Bar to lawmakers to law enforcement, let us down,” Hernandez said. “The doors of Girardi Keese should have been closed long before I hired him in 2015.”
Hernandez also said she’s “bombarded with clips and memes on social media” of Erika Jayne “using her platform to craft the narrative that Tom is incompetent to stand trial and that she is the real victim, all while calling the actual victims like me liars.”
Erika Jayne has not attended any court hearings for Girardi. Testimony in his mental competency hearing in 2023, however, said the two recently spoke on the phone while Girardi is living at a memory care facility, and their divorce has not finalized.
The trustee for Girardi’s bankrupt law firm currently is suing Jayne for nearly $25 million, which the lawsuit alleges Jayne and her companies EJ Global, LLC and Pretty Mess Inc. received from Girardi Keese funds between 2007 and 2020 while “knowingly and willingly”participating in his crimes.
Staton didn’t name Erika Jayne on Tuesday but said Girardi spent his client’s money “in large part on his lifestyle and his now ex wife's lifestyle.”
The judge called the case “very difficult” when explaining her decision to grant Girardi a downward departure in his sentencing range. She said the four-point reduction acknowledges Girardi’s “age and health.” It dropped his offense level from 33 to 29, which for someone with no criminal history gives a standard sentencing range of 87 months to 108 months in prison.
Staton said Girardi’s victims are “are justifiably frustrated that because the system did not call him to account sooner.”
“His only punishment comes in these later years, where, essentially he will trade a senior facility for a BOP facility. In other words, this is not a greater punishment because he is old, it is lesser because he gives up less,” Staton said.
The judge said while “I do not typically question why I don't receive certain letters,” the only clients who wrote support letters for Girardi were either “someone who was a client of Mr. Girardi was either a lawyer, colleague or a family friend.”
“For someone who was a champion of the little guy, I saw no supporting letters from the little guys, the clients with no connections,” Staton, adding that other professionals she’s sentenced such as doctors who accept bribes have positive letters from clients.
She repeated what she said in April when she sentenced Girardi’s chief financial officer, Christopher Kazuo Kamon, to 10 years in prison “Most defendants involved in the white collar fraud scheme seem to have taken good care of their family, typically by using the proceeds of their criminal conduct.”
“It is clear that his greatest generosity was for himself,” the judge said.
Staton also said many of Girardi’s support letter mentioned his contributions to the legal system, “but he was rewarded for that.”
“He was not an underpaid, selfless teacher in our public school system who was never rewarded for his work,” she said.
Staton also said Girardi used his reputation to attract clients.
“He would show them his picture on the cover of a magazine and convince them to let them take their case. He made it seem to them that they were lucky to have him,” the judge said.
Paetty asked for Staton to remand Girardi to federal custody immediately, while Cross asked that he be given four months to surrender because of a needed gallbladder surgery. Staton gave him until July 17 report because she said his medical condition and placement is “going to need some thought and preparation on the part of the BOP.”
Girardi left the courthouse with Natalie Degrati, an investigator with the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Central District of California, and another caretaker.
Judge Staton didn’t explain why she went with the 87-month low-end sentence instead of the 108-month high-end sentence. Hernandez told reporters outside the courthouse that she believes Girardi deserved more time in prison “for all of the human damage.” She said she wasn't surprised he said all clients have been paid because “he’s lied to his own attorneys; he's lied to us. So that’s his M.O.”
Hernandez questioned why the attorneys who helped Girardi haven’t been charged.
“There’s a lot of other people who should be in that courtroom,” she said.
Bill Essayli, the interim U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, told reporter after the hearing that Girardi “stole from the very people who needed the money the most and they needed his protection the most. And so he’s going to be going to prison for many years — over seven years here — and and we hope that it brings a little bit of a solace to the victims of the case.”
Court documents:
Oct. 8 Christopher Kamon’s plea agreement
Dec. 2 Judge Staton rejects motions for new trial and acquittal
Dec. 6 Prosecutors’ sentencing memo
Dec. 6 Defense sentencing memo
Dec. 6 Declaration about federal prison dementia care
Dec. 6 Defense character reference letters
Dec. 9 Forfeiture application
Dec. 13 Prosecutors’ response to defense memo
Dec. 16 Judge Staton’s order on mental defect law
Dec. 18 Prosecutors’ brief
Dec. 18 Defense brief
Dec. 20 Judge Staton’s commitment order
May 14 Motion to dismiss in Chicago case
May 28 status report in Chicago case
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