Tom Girardi apologizes to Judge Staton after ringing phone interrupts hearing
The disbarred attorney and husband of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Erika Jayne is to stand trial next month on five counts of wire fraud.
Disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi made his first public court appearance since January on Friday as his lawyers prepare for his wire fraud trial that begins next month.
The 85-year-old said little in court outside of apologizing to U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton after his cell phone rang during the hearing. He’ll return to Staton’s courtroom on Aug. 6 for jury selection.
Prospective jurors are due at the courthouse next to fill out a questionnaire that will ask about their knowledge of Girardi and his wife, “Real Housewives of beverly Hills” star Erika Jayne. The questionnaire will warn the potential jurors that attorneys may know of their public social media postings.
Judge Staton said Friday that attorneys “may be entitled” to research potential jurors online after Assistant U.S. Attorney Ali Moghaddas asked if she allowed it.
Deputy Federal Defender Charles Snyder said Main Justice filed a brief in “I believe it was the Trump D.C. Case” about the importance of researching jurors on social media. Not all judges allow it: In March, Staton’s colleague U.S. District Judge John F. Walter barred attorneys from researching potential jurors on social media in the public corruption trial of former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan.
Prosecutors also agreed on Friday to instruct their witnesses not to read social media coverage of the trial before they testify after Snyder warned that some “very talented reporters” report near transcripts of trial testimony. He referenced my Twitter coverage of Michael Avenatti’s fraud trial in 2021 and said the testimony was “reported in real time.”
“Whether it’s happening in real time, or whether it’s happening at the end of the day, it is not uncommon to get essentially a quasi transcript of what’s happening in court,” said Snyder, who’s defending Girardi with Deputy Federal Defenders J. Alejandro Barrientos and Samuel Cross.
Girardi’s co-defendant, former law firm accountant Christopher Kamon, was in court today, also. He’s been in federal custody since December 2022, and will be tried separately after Staton granted Girardi’s severance request. He’s scheduled for trial in October in a separate fraud case, and his lawyer, Pasadena sole practitioner Michael Severo, told Staton he and prosecutors agreed to a Jan. 21 trial date in Girardi’s case.
The severance means prosecutors no longer plan to call Kamon’s former girlfriend to testify about gifts and her knowledge of his attempt to flee to the Bahamas, but she could still testify in trial because Girardi’s lawyers plan to call her as part of their defense, which will blame Kamon for the stolen money. Before Friday’s hearing began, Staton finalized a written order that says Girardi' can’t get into the “nature of the expenditures” by Kamon, but she said in court “I’m going to back off of that a little bit” and potentially allow some testimony based on a defense offer of proof.
Staton also on Friday rejected a defense request to exclude testimony from Ryan Darby, an assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who testified in Girardi’s mental compentecy hearing. The judge said Darby’s testimony about Girardi’s faking or exaggerating his mental condition is “appropriate rebuttal” to defense expert Helen Chui’s testimony, a University of Southern California neurology professor who testified in his compentecy hearing that she “accepted….[his] presentation at face value.”
“It’s relevant to challenging her opinion,” Staton said.
Snyder also told Staton the defense plans “to ask the court throughout the trial to make ongoing inquiries of our client,” apparently referring to Girardi’s competence for trial. He said they’ll propose questions because “it's our belief that the court has a duty to continuously assure itself that things are fine.”
“OK. Provide me with authority and questions that you think I should ask. I’ll give it some thought,” Staton said.
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