Precrisis:
Prior to his downfall, Tom Girardi was one of the most prolific and powerful personal injury lawyers in Los Angeles, California. The movie Erin Brockovich is where Girardi’s notoriety began with his name being thanked in the movie credits as one of the advisors in the film. While he was already well accomplished in his career, the movie highlighted his legal team’s efforts when Ms. Brockovich went after Pacific Gas & Electric in 1993. (Goldstein, 2021) Girardi’s team won the legal battle forcing California Utilities to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to victims who became chronically ill from drinking contaminated water. Over the course of the next three decades, Girardi’s career took off and his firm was winning billions of dollars from other prolific legal battles, earning him many accolades and connections with people in high places.
By 2013, Tom Girardi became a trustee of the Library of Congress in Washington D. C appointed by the Senate. (The National Trial Lawyers Top 100, 2017) A year later in 2014 he was inducted into the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame (Goldstein, 2021), and in 2017, he was selected as Citizen of the Year by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) and praised for his “humanitarian efforts, outstanding leadership, and generosity to his community.” (The National Trial Lawyers Top 100, 2017) But perhaps what ended up being one of the most shocking positions of power he obtained, was becoming the first trial lawyer ever to be appointed to the California Judicial Council, the policymaking body of the state courts. In 2018, the year his firm took on the victims from the Lion Air plane crash, Girardi was one of the most powerful men in Los Angeles.
With a highly regarded reputation and continued success among his prolific lawsuits, Tom Girardi lived a life of extravagance. Some would argue his lifestyle was significantly more lavish than what most other high-profile lawyers got to experience. However, it wasn’t until 2016 when his wife, Erika Girardi (also known by her stage name, Erika Jayne), joined the cast of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on the Bravo network that the exorbitant wealth was put on full display. Erika not only flaunted her wealth on screen, but through her music career as well. In 2017 she dropped a single and music video called “XXPEN$IVE” detailing the amount of money it takes to be “Erika Jayne.” Shortly thereafter whispers of embezzlement and fraud began to swirl and longtime clients of Tom who were waiting on their settlement money, started calling his firm’s legitimacy into question.
Crisis Trigger, Recognition, and Containment
After nearly five years of watching reality star Erika Jayne gush about her brilliant and accomplished husband on TV, Bravo and pop culture fans were shocked when they found out the news she had filed for divorce from Tom Girardi in November of 2020. What was even more shocking than the divorce, was just one month later, headlines read that Tom and Erika as well as Tom’s law firm Girardi & Keese, were being sued for embezzlement and fraud crimes. The law firm Edelson PC slammed the Girardi’s with a lawsuit on behalf of several families who lost loved ones in the Lion Air Boeing plane crash. (Wurzburger, 2020) As the lead counsel in the Lion Air litigation, Boeing paid Girardi & Keese an undisclosed sum that was supposed to be distributed amongst the families of the victims. However, $2 million of that money seemingly just disappeared and the victim’s families were never paid out.
The Lion Air victims weren’t the only ones who entrusted Girardi to get them compensation but were left with nothing, there were many others as Girardi is accused of embezzling more than $15 million in his client’s settlement funds. In the case of Joe Ruigomez, a former client of Tom’s who was a burn victim in the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion, Girardi withheld Ruigomez’s $135,000 settlement payout by stringing him along with lies about medical liens and court proceedings needing to conclude before being able to pay out the client. This seemed to be one of the many excuses he gave buying him time as he continuously dipped into the funds of his clients.
According to the United States Attorney’s office, in another case in 2019, Girardi negotiated a $17.5 million payout from a lawsuit where his firm was representing two car crash victims and their child, who was paralyzed in the crash. In the settlement it was agreed upon that the child’s portion of the money was to be placed in a trust and an annuity to be controlled by a third party inaccessible to Girardi.
However, the first $4 million of the settlement payment was transferred to a bank account that Girardi controlled instead. To throw off the scent of his shady dealings, just before transferring the $4 million into his own account, Girardi allegedly transferred $1.45 million as an “advance” to the clients from their settlement funds. This money allegedly came from different Girardi & Keese clients. With too much power and authority to ever be questioned, it allowed Girardi and his firm to fly under the radar as he became a master of deceit and used the misappropriated money to fund his outrageously expensive lifestyle and Erika Jayne’s music career.
As the media frenzy ensued and more information of Tom’s misappropriation of funds came out, it led viewers of the Bravo show and the victims of the embezzlement crimes to believe perhaps the divorce was orchestrated to hide the victim’s money that was stolen.
Luckily for Real Housewives fans, the height of Erika’s divorce and Tom Girardi’s legal battles was all captured while filming the 11th season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. With Tom’s wife Erika starring on a hit TV show that garners over a million viewers just for that specific Housewives franchise alone, (Gibbs, 2023) and has a hellishly active social media fan base, the likelihood that this scandal would have ever remained contained was impossible.
Erika faced outraged fans questioning the legitimacy of her LLC that funded everything for her music from glam and styling, to show and music production. At the time, Jay Edelson of Edelson PC the firm suing the couple claimed “we believe we’re going to be able to prove that Erika was incredibly involved in not just the law firm, but also, he was loaning money to her company tens of millions of dollars to her company,” (Hearon & Heartman, 2023) As accusations intensified, Erika went full throttle into finger-pointing and defense mode while Tom stayed quiet as his health ultimately declined.
By December of 2020 just a month after Tom had been slammed with lawsuits, it was reported that he was hospitalized for “serious illness and lawyers were concerned about his mental competency.” (Hearon, 2020) In January 2021 due to Tom’s legal team’s increasing concern over his declining mental health, Tom’s brother, Robert Girardi, requested to become Tom’s conservator-- giving him control of his finances.
Since the beginning of the accusations, the only statements made from Tom’s legal team have been regarding his health and his inability to testify. Tom has remained silent on the matter he was accused of and has only made one statement in a court hearing in 2021 rejecting the idea of being put into a conservatorship. In the hearing he told the court, “obviously, I disagree with the conservatorship altogether. I think that we should put together the reasons why the conservatorship should be dissolved, and then we’ll address it, address the court. Right now, I have nothing to say to the court.” (Bacardi, 2021) Since then no other statements have been made.
The stark difference in how Erika and Tom’s team handled the legal turmoil shows how remaining silent and only allowing representation to speak for you may not entirely preserve your image, but it certainly makes people bored and turn their attention elsewhere. From a Housewives viewer perspective, Erika’s reckless behavior on the show in the thick of the scandal in a way benefitted Tom as many of the headlines put Erika as the face of the scandal just as much as her husband, if not more. Viewers of the show were turned off by her stoic and unempathetic demeanor towards her former husband’s victims and demanded answers of where the money went since we all watched her have no problems spending it for several seasons.
Post Crisis:
Although Tom Girardi has not been officially found guilty under a court of law, in July of 2022 he was disbarred by the state of California. By February 2023, he was officially indicted by a federal grand jury in the state of California and Illinois for embezzling more than $15 million from his clients facing a total of thirteen counts of wire fraud between the two states amounting to more than 20 years in prison if he’s found guilty. (United States Attorney’s Office, 2023) The courts were unable to prove Erika’s knowledge or involvement in the embezzlement suit and she was dismissed from her husband’s embezzlement lawsuit.
While it is almost certain that Tom will end up being sentenced for his crimes, the devastation his swindling left behind is far from over. In addition to the victims who still need to be paid out, with Tom’s firm shut down, his 8,000 clients involved in the 2015 Porter Ranch Environmental major gas leak lawsuit now need new representation as well. In March of 2023, a federal judge in California filed a plea of not guilty for Girardi. As mentioned before, Tom’s hearing in federal court is set for August 3, 2023 and there have been no further comments made by Tom or his legal team regarding the charges or allegations made against him.
I think with most extreme white-collar embezzlement crimes like this one, there’s not really any way to bounce back. Because many have questioned the legitimacy of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis given the timing of events, it’s hard to say if his team really handled the crisis well or if they were dealt an “easier” hand to play off of. Keeping mum on the allegations while letting Erika and her on-screen persona essentially be the collateral damage was probably the best tactic they used in avoiding the press and further damaging his reputation.
While the case is still on going at the time this was being written, the public opinion of disdain has already been set in stone. Whether Tom is found guilty or not, his reputation was tarnished as soon as he was disbarred. I think when you take into consideration Tom’s age, his severe decline in health, and the high probability of facing jail time, staying quiet and waiting for trial was the only option they really had when dealing with this crisis.
Resources:
Bacardi, F. (2021, June 10). Tom Girardi speaks out on conservatorship amid lawsuits, health issues. Page Six. https://pagesix.com/2021/06/10/tom-girardi-speaks-out-on-conservatorship-amid-lawsuits/
Gibbs, L. (2023, June 19). Every real housewives series, ranked by ratings. ScreenRant. https://screenrant.com/real-housewives-series-ranked-by-ratings/#the-real-housewives-of-beverly-hills-season-12
Goldstein, M. (2021, January 13). A hall of fame lawyer, a “real housewife” and a stunning fall. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/business/erin-brockovich-thomas-girardi-boeing.html
Grand jury charges disbarred plaintiffs’ lawyer Tom Girardi with wire fraud for allegedly embezzling over $15 million in client money. Central District of California | Grand Jury Charges Disbarred Plaintiffs’ Lawyer Tom Girardi with Wire Fraud for Allegedly Embezzling Over $15 Million in Client Money | United States Department of Justice. (2023, February 3). https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/grand-jury-charges-disbarred-plaintiffs-lawyer-tom-girardi-wire-fraud-allegedly
Hautman, N., & Hearon, S. (2023, March 16). Rhobh’s Erika Jayne, Tom Girardi’s divorce: Everything we know. Us Weekly. https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/pictures/rhobhs-erika-jayne-tom-girardis-divorce-everything-we-know/
Hearon, S. (2021, March 11). Tom Girardi’s lawyers concerned about mental competency amid lawsuit. Us Weekly. https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/tom-girardis-lawyers-concerned-about-mental-competency-amid-lawsuit/
Service, C. N. (2023, June 13). Ex-lawyer Tom Girardi found competent to stand trial on embezzlement charges. Daily News. https://www.dailynews.com/2023/06/12/ex-lawyer-tom-girardi-found-competent-to-stand-trial-on-embezzlement-charges/
Thomas Girardi selected as citizen of the Year by the IATP. The National Trial Lawyers. (n.d.). https://thenationaltriallawyers.org/article/thomas-girardi-selected-as-citizen-of-the-year-by-the-international-association-of-top-professionals/
VIP members. The International Society of Business Leaders . (n.d.). https://www.isobl.com/thomas-girardi/