Tom Girardi has been sentenced to seven years and three months in federal prison after being found guilty of swindling his horribly injured or grieving clients out of around $15 million in settlement fees.
The 86-year-old disgraced lawyer and estranged husband of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne has also been ordered to pay $2,310,247 in restitution to his victims and a $35,000 fine.
Judge Josephine L. Staton, who handed down the sentencing, ordered Girardi to surrender to federal authorities by July 17. The sentencing occurred in a courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on June 3, which also happens to be Girardi's 86th birthday.
DailyMail.com has contacted Girardi's lawyers and representatives for his estranged wife Erika, 53, but did not immediately hear back.
A jury found the once-powerful attorney guilty on four counts of wire fraud in August.
Girardi, who built the prestigious LA law firm Girardi & Keese after his fight against a California utility giant inspired the Oscar-winning movie Erin Brockovich, plead not guilty to the four counts (he had been indicted on five counts of wire fraud in 2023).
His high-rolling career came tumbling down in 2020 when he was accused of stealing millions in settlements he’d won for the victims of the 2018 Lion Air plane crash in Indonesia, a tragedy in which 189 people died.
The claims from that crash were also the basis of separate criminal charges against Girardi in Chicago, where he was charged with eight counts of wire fraud and four counts of criminal contempt of court. However those charges were dropped following the California conviction. He pleaded not guilty in that case.
'This self-proclaimed "champion of justice" was nothing more than a thief and a liar who conned his vulnerable clients out of the millions of dollars,' United States Attorney Bill Essayli said in a press release about the prison sentence.
'My office will vigorously prosecute corrupt lawyers and those who assist them in criminal activities.'
Lawyers for Girardi, who was diagnosed with late-onset Alzheimer's disease and dementia in 2021, had concerns about the defendant residing in prison amid his health woes.
Attorney Sam Cross, who is among Girardi's lawyers, said the defendant would probably end up spending the rest of his life in prison in light of his health troubles, according to the LA Times.
'Should Tom Girardi die in prison?' he asked the judge multiple times in remarks.
Cross also asked the judge on Monday to keep Girardi in his current assisted living facility instead sending him to federal prison, arguing he would not receive the proper care he needs in prison.
'We believe he is in need of specialized treatment,' Cross explained to the judge, according to Deadline.
He described Girardi as 'frail, elderly' and argued he would be at risk of being 'exploited or taken advantage of' in prison.
But the judge ultimately disagreed, citing testimony from a BOP forensic psychologist, a BOP neuropsychologist, and the self-awareness Girardi was apparently exhibiting.
She concluded they can safely sentence Girardi to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility. 'He will be designated to an appropriate facility,' she said.
Girardi's mental competence had been a major issue throughout the trial, with his lawyers previously attempting to push for a new trial in addition to claiming he is unable to assist his lawyers, struggles with his memory, and is legally unfit to appear before a jury (however prosecutors claimed it was mostly an act, alleging he had been faking dementia to evade being held responsible for his crimes, according to the Los Angeles Times).
In January 2024 Girardi was cleared to stand trial with U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton declaring he was 'competent to stand trial', despite his Alzheimer's diagnosis.
Girardi was previously declared fit by a court-appointed psychologist in June 2023 but his attorneys presented repeated challenges.
Neuropsychologist Dr. Diana Goldstein said that she 'has concluded her examination and opined, among other things, that [Girardi] is competent to stand trial,' she wrote. It is unclear the basis for that conclusion and her full analysis.
Goldstein’s report was filed under seal and partly redacted by Girardi’s attorneys. The prosecutors who retained Goldstein do not have access to the complete document, Yahoo News reported.
California forensic and clinical psychiatrist, Dr. Nathan Lavid wrote in a sworn affidavit that Girardi suffered from late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, the news outlet reported.
Girardi’s brother, Robert, had been acting as conservator on his brother's behalf after Girardi underwent a mental evaluation in February 2021, The New York Post reported.
During the trial, the jury heard that between 2010 and 2020 the shamed attorney used his clients’ settlement funds 'like a personal piggy bank.'
‘Girardi Keese was a den of thieves and Tom Girardi was the thief-in-chief,’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Paetty previously told the court.
‘Girardi Keese was a house of cards built on the lies of Tom Girardi.’
Girardi ran a massive 'Ponzi scheme,' lying to clients and using their misappropriated millions to pay for his own lavish lifestyle of private jets, luxury cars, exclusive club memberships, expensive jewelry for his third wife, ex-go-go dancer Jayne plus $20 million to fund her acting career.
The couple were together for 21 years but their divorce - filed by Jayne soon after the Lion Air allegations - has been held up since Girardi Keese filed bankruptcy in 2021 with more than $100 million in debts.
Jayne never showed up at her soon-to-be-ex husband’s trial and it's unclear if she ever made an appearance to the sentencing on Tuesday, however she made no mention of her estranged husband's legal troubles on Instagram that day, with her latest Instagram Story being a shout-out to her new Vogue profile at 7:15AM PT.
Girardi - who was disbarred in 2022 following the allegations against him - was portrayed by his defense team as suffering from dementia.
‘He got old, he got sick, he lost his mind,’ his attorney Charles Snyder previously told the court.
‘All the lights were on but there was nobody home. He lost touch with reality.'
Girardi and his legal team also pointed the finger of blame at another man, Christopher Kamon, 49, the chief financial officer of Girardi Keese who they say stole between $50 million and $100 million from the company.
Kamon plead guilty to two counts of wire fraud and was sentenced to 121 months in federal prison in April in a separate trial.
During the trial, prosecutors told jurors that Girardi preyed on clients who were ‘in their darkest hours,’ suffering from terrible injuries or mourning the death of loved ones.
Joe Ruigomez - who desperately needed money to pay the giant medical bills for the horrible injuries he suffered in a 2020 gas explosion at his home that killed his girlfriend - was told by Girardi that his settlement from the PG&E utility was $5 million, when it was actually $50 million.
Another Girardi client, Judy Selberg, hired the once-acclaimed lawyer to bring an unlawful death lawsuit after her husband Paul was killed in a boating accident in April 2018.
Girardi won $500,000 for her but at the time of the guilty verdict, more than four years after the settlement, she’s still owed a large portion of that.
He also held up Erica Saldana’s $2.5 million settlement which she needed to pay the medical bills for the devastating injuries her one-year-old son suffered in a car crash.
And Josie Hernandez had to declare bankruptcy because Girardi didn’t pay her the money she was owed from a settlement over a medical device injury.
In all these cases, when the clients called or emailed Girardi to ask when they were going to get their money, he came up with excuses like there was a lien or ‘holdback’ on the settlement, that there was an IRS issue or a judge needed to ‘sign off’ before the money could be paid. All these claims were false.
‘He lied to his clients over and over and over again about why they weren’t being paid,’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Ali Moghaddas previously told the court. ‘He lied to them them because he did not want to give them their money because it was gone….it was already spent.
‘Behind the curtain he was pilfering his clients’ funds. It was just cruel to treat victims in this manner.
'He was buying two private jets while his clients weren’t getting paid…. This this case is a simple and sad story of trust violated and greed.’
It took the jury of seven men and five women only four and a half hours of deliberation to reach their guilty verdicts - two hours the first day and two-and-a-half hours the following day.
