Girardi, 2 others charged with stealing $18M from clients

Disbarred and disgraced attorney Thomas V. Girardi was accused Wednesday in separate federal indictments handed down in Los Angeles and Chicago of stealing as much as $18 million from personal injury clients.

"Mr. Girardi cultivated a public persona of being a crusader against corporations on behalf of individuals who were harmed," E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said at a news conference. "Our investigation has revealed that Mr. Girardi was robbing and stealing from the people he claimed to be championing."

Girardi, who is 83, suffers from "moderate" delusions, according to an affidavit from a clinical psychiatrist that was submitted in civil litigation in March 2021. He was placed under conservatorship and is living in an assisted living facility in Seal Beach. The State Bar and some attorneys in the legal community have expressed doubts about this diagnosis.

Estrada said, "We leave it for the court to determine competency issues. His competency has not been evaluated by a federal criminal court and that evaluation will take place if it comes before the court."

But the U.S. attorney noted that Wednesday's indictment alleges misconduct between 2010 and 2020. "When Mr. Girardi was a practicing lawyer, we believe the evidence shows he was competent during that time."

The Los Angeles indictment accuses Girardi and Christopher Kamon, the former chief financial officer of the Girardi Keese law firm, of stealing $15 million from five clients. The two are charged with five counts of wire fraud. USA v. Girardi et al., 2:23-cr-00047-JFW (C.D. Cal., filed Jan. 31, 2023).

The Chicago indictment is specific to the theft of $3 million from victims of a 2018 Boeing airline crash in Indonesia. Girardi, Kamon and Girardi's son-in-law, David R. Lira, are accused of eight counts of wire fraud and four counts of criminal contempt of court. USA v. Girardi, 1:23-cr-00054 (N.D. Ill., filed Feb. 1, 2023).

David Lira

The Los Angeles case was assigned to U.S. District Judge John F. Walter and Girardi's arraignment was scheduled for Monday. Lawyers for Girardi, Kamon and Lira could not be reached for comment.

The indictments cap a dramatic fall for one of California's best known and deeply connected attorneys. Girardi has for years litigated some of the largest and most impactful personal injury, toxic tort and product defect cases in the state. But it was his role as moneyman and counsel to governors, U.S. senators and presidents that bestowed on him an aura of power and invincibility. After his wife became a member of the cast of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" in 2015, Girardi appeared on the show several times and a sheen of glamour was added.

Over the years, clients had sued Girardi, and made State Bar complaints, accusing him of failing to pay them the money they were owed. It came to a head in 2019 when creditors, such as funds that lent him money to litigate, filed lawsuits demanding repayment. Then Jay Edelson of Edelson PC, his co-counsel in the litigation involving the crash of Lion Air jet in Indonesia, told a federal judge in Chicago that Girardi had failed to pay victims settlement money from The Boeing Company.

Along the way, the legal community in California was sullied. Edelson said Girardi bragged that all the judges in Los Angeles were in his pocket. And there have been allegations that Girardi misused his position advising governors and U.S. senators on state and federal judicial nominations to establish a narrative that he had the power to make a judge, or break one.

Finally, Girardi and the firm he founded in 1965 with Robert M. Keese were forced into bankruptcy.

The Los Angeles indictment against Girardi lists five unidentified clients as the former lawyer's alleged victims. Prosecutors emphasized that there may be additional victims brought into the case who are still unknown.

Kamon pleaded not guilty last week to what prosecutors have said is an unrelated fraud in which he skimmed millions of dollars off the law firm to make real estate purchases. Kamon has been in custody since November when he was arrested in Baltimore upon returning from the Bahamas, where he had purchased a $2 million property. USA v. Kamon, 2:23-cr-00024-JLS (C.D. Cal., filed Jan. 19, 2023).

Jack P. DiCanio at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom LLP is defending Kamon in that case.

The Chicago indictment states that the trio swindled $3 million in settlement funds from clients who were victims of the airline crash in Indonesia. Lira, charged only in the Chicago case, has said he had no power over client trust accounts. He was just a salaried lawyer like everyone else at the law firm, except for Girardi, he said.

Estrada said Wednesday that Girardi took advantage of his benevolent image to market himself and his firm, but in reality, he and Kamon were committing fraud on a grand scale. For example, after negotiating a settlement of $53 million for a client in 2013, said Estrada, Girardi told the client that the settlement was only $7.3 million. The victim involved in this case is identified in the indictment as "Client 1."

Girardi used client money on personal expenses including the services of two private jets and jewelry for his wife, paid invoices sent to his law firm, and settled other debts, according to the charges.

Federal authorities are still investigating Girardi, his firm and associates, Estrada said, leaving open the door to more charges.

"We hope that with the charges brought against Mr. Girardi and Mr. Kamon, there will be some measure of solace for the people victimized by these defendants," Estrada said.

"Mistrust grows in the legal profession when clients can't trust their attorneys to pay them the settlements intended to make them whole," Tyler Hatcher, an IRS investigator added.