Tom Girardi found guilty of wire fraud: “It wasn’t an easy choice,’ juror claims.

The verdict is the final word on the trial that lasted for weeks, marking the most difficult time for the disgraced lawyer Tom Girardi, who was once a titan of the legal profession.

By Brittny Mejia

Aug 27, 2024 10:32 PM

HTML0 An federal judge in Los Angeles found Tom Girardi who was once a titan of the legal profession and now a disgraced former attorney found guilty of wire fraud on Tuesday for directing a long-running scheme where he swindled hundreds of millions of dollars.

The verdict was the culmination of an intense trial lasting 13 days in which witnesses testified with emotion of former customers, which included victims of burns and widow whose husband was killed in a boating crash as well as employees of the now-defunct lawyer company Girardi Keese along with an outside lawyer who tried to secure a woman settlement she was granted.

While clients remained unpaid The jury was told by prosecutors that, Girardi spent money on private aircrafts, country clubs, as well as the professional career of his estranged wife, Erika Girardi the star of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

Girardi 85-year-old Girardi was a defendant in a trial for four charges of wire fraud. Girardi was found guilty of the four counts.

A jury deliberated for nearly four hours before giving the verdict. Girardi dressed in his same gray jacket that he been wearing throughout the trial moved around in his chair while he waited to hear the verdict.

He sat back to watch the judge Josephine Staton as she read the verdict, face looking stoic. While she read out the verdict that was deemed to be final, he was rubbing his forehead. He could face as long as 80 years in prison.

When the show was over, Girardi was asked by an interviewer if he would like to speak. He chuckled and replied, “No. No.”

Kathleen Ruigomez, the mother of a teen who was injured during an explosion, sat at the top of the row. She was a witness for the prosecution, and was crying when her verdict read.

Federal public defenders as well as the prosecution in the case were not able to speak.

In a press event outside the courthouse U.S. Atty. Martin Estrada called Girardi a “disgraced lawyer” who portrayed himself “as a champion for the little guy.”

“Mr. Girardi was no champion for justice, in fact he was a perpetrator of injustice, victimizing his own clients when they were most vulnerable and most in need,” Estrada stated. “This verdict represents a remarkable fall from grace.”

Sentencing is set for Dec. 6. Girardi is free until that date. Staton declared that he’s neither an imminent threat to the community, nor an airline risk.

Outside the courthouse in the courthouse, Juror Miguel Lopez told The Times that the jury was convinced Girardi was innocent because “all the evidence was there.” The jury relied on the evidence, which he said “it wasn’t a hard decision.”

In the course of this trial, the Girardi’s public defenders claimed they were unable to comprehend their client’s mental state and unable to help his own lawyers and even retain any short-term memory and was suffering from the process of declining cognitive capacity.

“Mr. Girardi got old, and he got sick, and he lost his mind,” the Deputy Public Defender Charles Snyder told the jury on Monday.

Snyder asserted that Girardi was the sole owner of the company in a name only, and referred to it as the “Weekend at Bernie’s” situation that the partners of the company were “propping him up to keep the party going.”

Prosecutors acknowledged during closing arguments that Girardi seemed to be struggling with cognitive issues in the year 2020 However, they encouraged jurors to look back to 2010, when the program first started — something which seemed to be a common theme.

“He has mental problems, but it just started right now,” Lopez stated about Girardi. “It wasn’t from before.”

The trial was going on and white-haired Girardi moved from and to his seat, right next to his lawyers, shaking his hands when he moved. A lady in scrubs would sometimes guide him. In one instance, while the jury was not present in that room Girardi was adamant with one lawyer, trying to get him to the right seat.

“I know how to sit,” the defendant claimed.

However, it was unclear what exactly Girardi was in reality, while he wrote notes on a legal pad that was yellow as witnesses testified on behalf of the prosecution. Sometimes, Girardi appeared to be trying to instruct his attorneys, and handed an attorney a piece of paper which he’d written notes on before taking the stand.

The guilty verdict is the new lowest level for Girardi, who in during his long career, forged close relationships with governors, mayors judges, senators as well as Supreme Court justices. Once a legendary plaintiff’s attorney he was admired and was fearedby his fellow attorneys due to the settlements of nine figures he negotiated and the powerful people he counted as his friends.

In the news conference on in the late afternoon on Tuesday Estrada admitted to the power Girardi was able to exert on other attorneys and judge.

“Mr. Girardi was a lawyer who had it all. He was considered one of the best lawyers in America, he had one of the biggest and one of the most successful firms in America,” Estrada stated. “He was paid very well for all that he did, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted even more. His insatiable appetite for money is what led him to court and what led to this verdict.”

The defense attorneys of Girardi laid on the responsibility for the huge corruption of Girardi Keese falls on the company’s long-time chief financial officer Chris Kamon, accusing him of taking the sum of more than $50 million. Kamon is also accused of wire fraud as a result of the theft of money from clients and another case in which Kamon is accused of stealing funds from the company to fund the purchase of houses as well as a monthly payment of $20,000 to his girlfriend.

“This was Mr. Kamon’s scheme,” Snyder stated in his closing argument. “This was absolutely not [Girardi’s] fraud.”

The law firm of Girardi collapsed in the last quarter of 2020 after evidence suggested that he took payments from widows as well as orphans following the aftermath of an Indonesian plane crash. Afterwards, thousands of his former customers and suppliers disclosed that they had been collectively scammed from several million of dollars. Girardi was barred in July 2022.

During the trial in the trial, former clients of this firm admitted to the jury that they were impressed by the success of Girardi’s firm which included getting an $333 million settlement against Pacific Gas & Electric featured in the film “Erin Brockovich.” He promised of everything being ok and advised them to not worry about it, they claimed.

“I trusted him too much,” admitted Joseph Ruigomez, who suffered severe burns as a teen during a 2010. San Bruno pipeline explosion, which caused the death of his girlfriend.

After Girardi agreed to a $53 million settlement to the entire family Ruigomez as well as his mom explained the reasons for their late payments and excuses that were piling up. A IRS agent later confirmed that a portion of the Ruigomez settlement funds were used to pay others Girardi clients who’s settlements had been misused.

In letters and voicemails that were filed in the courtroom, Girardi repeated the same message to angry clients who were seeking the money they owed: “Don’t be mad at me.”

“He picked these people in the darkest hour of their life and told them what he thought they’d believe,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Ali Moghaddas told the jury in closing arguments on Monday. “What you saw in this case is, for years, the defendant was running a Ponzi scheme.”

Lopez The juror stated that one of the biggest flaws in evidence against Girardi was the lies he told his clients. Lopez claimed that the money of clients is supposed to have been placed in a trust account and that Girardi used the funds to fund “personal reasons.”

The juror admitted that he felt terrible for those who testified, which included Ruigomez, Josefina Hernandez, who was injured through a medical device, and was fighting bankruptcy Judy Selberg, who lost her husband in a boating incident, and Erika Saldana, the mother of a 1 year-old son was paralyzed after a drunk driver crashed into the family’s car.

Saldana’s son later died. The family did not receive an outstanding sum of $1 million that they due.

“A lot of people were in pain, and he was taking advantage of them,” Lopez claimed.

In the course of the trial of the trial, Girardi’s federal public defense attorneys brought in over 10 witnesses which included The Dr. Helena Chui, who admitted that Girardi suffers from dementia; his housekeeper who lasted for around 20 years, and his secretary at the firm that he worked for.

Lopez stated that the jury believed that the doctor who prosecutors been called to the witness stand “because he has more information” and Chui “did not have enough information on the case.”

Girardi will be tried again next year in Chicago for alleged theft. and other employees at the firm were able to steal payouts from Boeing to families whose beloved family members were killed during the crash of an Indonesian airplane crash.

Times reporter Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.

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The original story was published in Los Angeles Times.