Former high-profile Los Angeles lawyer Tom Girardi, who was found guilty of stealing at least $15 million from his clients, is requesting to be placed in a medical institution to complete his sentence instead of going to jail.
The 85-year-old Girardi was convicted in August of four federal counts of wire fraud for stealing millions from his clients in a 10-year Ponzi scheme while they were waiting for their payments. The now-disbarred attorney had established a solid reputation for defending plaintiffs in well-known personal injury cases, including the historic Hinkley groundwater lawsuit, which resulted in a payment of $333 million at the time and served as the basis for the 2000 Julia Roberts movie “Erin Brockovich.”
In the last few years, he made a few appearances on Bravo TV’s “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” which features his now-ex-wife, Erika Girardi, a pop singer and socialite who goes by the stage name Erika Jayne.
As part of their claims, several of his clients lost loved ones or had terrible bodily injuries. For example, one client had severe burns all over his body and life-threatening injuries when his girlfriend died in a natural gas explosion in Northern California. When Girardi told the client that the lawsuit had been settled for $7.25 million, he was lying. Girardi had, in fact, settled for $53 million.
Judge Josephine L. Staton of the U.S. District Court said Friday that Girardi, who suffers from dementia, should be transported to a federal medical facility for an assessment that would determine whether he will be hospitalized or serve his sentence in prison. Originally set for Girardi’s prison sentence, Staton rescheduled the court earlier this week to a status hearing.
Girardi’s attorneys have requested that the judge grant him a medical facility placement while prosecutors pursue prison time, noting in court filings this month that he is an old, first-time, nonviolent offender “who poses no ongoing or future threat to society.”
Prosecutors dispute their claim that the federal prison system is ill-equipped to provide him with medical care.
“Tom Girardi is now an 85-year-old man suffering from dementia who is broke, partially blind, and incontinent. According to the court filings his lawyers made, “He has lost everything, from his possessions, to his reputation, to his mind.” “He spends his days in a lockdown memory care facility where he occupies a shared room and requires round-the-clock assistance for basic tasks.”
As the court documents go on, they claim Girardi has no memory of the trial or his guilty verdict and “often does not recall close family or his few remaining friends.” “He has to be tricked into taking a shower on the pretense of going to court, and spends his time writing pages of notes about imaginary legal cases and clients that do not exist,” the documents say.
In court briefs this week, federal prosecutors contended that although Girardi “shows some signs of cognitive impairment,” the U.S. jail system has all the resources he would require as an old dementia patient.
The full scope of Girardi’s medical condition is still unknown, according to prosecutors who wrote in a court filing on Wednesday that “…the Court on numerous occasions noted that defendant has exhibited signs of malingering and has shown the ability to engage in sophisticated conduct designed to exaggerate the symptoms of mental decline for his own benefit.”
“As a result of this malingering, it is difficult to accurately determine defendant’s true level of impairment,” according to the court papers.
U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Martin Estrada stated after the guilty verdict on August 27 that Girardi may be sentenced to up to 80 years in prison for the offenses he was found guilty of, but the court would consider other considerations. Regarding a possible sentence, he stated, “We are not going to prejudge that,” although he did add that jail time was still a possibility.
“But the mere fact that he is older, an older adult, does not mean we will not seek prison time,” Estrada stated.
Prosecutors said Girardi led a lavish lifestyle that was portrayed on the reality TV show his estranged wife still appears on, spending money on jewelry and private jets while embezzling from clients through a Ponzi scheme that used money from some of his clients’ settlements to pay off other settlements.
“He had a very lavish lifestyle, of course,” Estrada remarked. “You just have to watch a little bit of television to see how lavishly he was living.”
An attorney who collaborated with Girardi to represent the relatives of those murdered in the 2018 Lion Air jet tragedy, which claimed 189 lives, filed a lawsuit against him in 2021 as the accusations against him grew. Girardi was charged with embezzling money from the customers.
“You have a famous lawyer and his famous wife who spend their money on whatever they want. At the time, Chicago-based lawyer Jay Edelson stated, “It’s really difficult to process.”
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