By FRED SHUSTER | City News Service
Disgraced former legal heavyweight Tom Girardi was handed a prison sentence of more than seven years Tuesday — his 86th birthday — for ripping off nearly $20 million from clients in a long-running Ponzi scheme.
“If there is ever a defendant to cut a break to — this is not the one,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Paetty told the court in downtown Los Angeles. “You do not get a pass for being a successful con artist.”
In sentencing Girardi to seven years and three months behind bars, U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton said the disbarred ex-attorney had “wielded his power” against vulnerable victims who had experienced “catastrophic” losses and came to Girardi for help.
“The reason clients weren’t getting their money,” the judge said, was that Girardi was “robustly” spending it on his and his then-wife’s lifestyle of “private jets and country clubs … living the high life on their money.”
Girardi was also ordered to pay over $2.3 million in restitution to four victims, plus fines. Staton said Girardi’s economic circumstances show he is able to “immediately” make the restitution payments.
He was also ordered to surrender to the prison institution designated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons by July 17.
Asked if he had anything to say to the court before sentencing, Girardi mumbled that he had never stolen client’s funds and “everybody got everything they were owed,” the same words he used when he testified at trial.
Girardi attorney Sam Cross argued that his client should be allowed to remain in the Orange County senior care home where he now lives. The attorney said his client suffers from “moderate dementia” and various physical ailments and would never remember why he was being punished if sent to prison.
“For Tom Girardi, there is no meaningful punishment,” Cross said. “This leaves only meaningless punishment. It is not necessary that he die in prison.”
Sentencing came a day after Staton heard testimony that helped her determine that despite Girardi’s age-related dementia, he is well enough to be given a federal prison term rather than being allowed to remain where he is out of fear that he is elderly and frail and would possibly be taken advantage of behind bars.
During a nearly three-hour hearing Monday, Staton heard from government medical experts and defense witnesses, and ultimately ruled that the federal prison system could adequately house and care for Girardi despite his ailments.
Girardi has been housed in the secure memory care section of an assisted living facility in Seal Beach for over two years, except for the six weeks he spent at the beginning of the year being psychologically evaluated at a federal facility in North Carolina.
The judge said Tuesday that the amount of Girardi’s 10-year theft scheme was actually about $19.4 million, almost $5 million more than the nearly $15 million loss amount previously calculated.
“The defendant took all the money,” the judge said, and used it as his “personal slush fund.” Staton said that in fashioning a sentence, she took into consideration the “vulnerable victims” he exploited and the loss of trust Girardi caused to the legal profession.
As Cross said, Girardi’s once-respected name “is now a watchword” for corruption.
Joe Ruigomez, a former client of Girardi’s who suffered severe burns in a 2010 gas line explosion, spoke to the court. Girardi represented Ruigomez and his family in a lawsuit against PG&E, securing a $53 million settlement. Girardi concealed the true settlement amount from the Ruigomez family, telling them it was significantly less, and then failed to provide Ruigomez with the agreed-upon funds, blaming a retired judge and claiming the money was being held for Ruigomez’s protection.
Ruigomez said his family had turned to Girardi for help, only to be “met by deception and exploitation. What was supposed to be a path to recovery turned into a nightmare.”
Prosecutors had argued for a 14-year prison term for Girardi’s August 2024 convictions for four counts of wire fraud.
Once ranked among the most successful and prominent lawyers in the country, Girardi stole millions from clients and spent the money on private jets, golf club memberships, jewelry and the career of his now-estranged wife, “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” cast member Erika Jayne, federal prosecutors said.
Girardi’s “yearslong theft of client funds from his law firm’s trust accounts and the myriad lies he told to cover up his theft represent a calculated and devastating betrayal of the very people that turned to him for help in their darkest hour,” prosecutors wrote.
Formerly known as a defender of the powerless in class-action lawsuits against corporations, Girardi represented plaintiffs in a number of high-profile cases, including Bryan Stow’s civil suit against Major League Baseball. Stow was the San Francisco Giants fan who sustained severe injuries during a brutal attack in a Dodger Stadium parking lot in 2011.
Girardi also represented plaintiffs in the toxic groundwater case against Pacific Gas & Electric Co. that was dramatized in the Oscar-winning 2000 Julia Roberts movie “Erin Brockovich.”
Girardi was convicted last summer of running the massive multi-year scheme in which he siphoned almost $20 million in settlement funds from four clients.
In Los Angeles federal court Tuesday, Girardi appeared disheveled and mumbled in a ghostly whisper when he spoke.
Chris Kamon, 51, the former accounting chief at Girardi’s now-defunct law firm Girardi Keese, was sentenced in April to over 10 years behind bars for enabling the embezzlement of millions of dollars from the firm’s clients and for embezzling money from the firm itself.
Staton ordered Kamon to forfeit $3.1 million to the United States as part of his plea deal after he pleaded guilty in October 2024 to two wire fraud counts.
Girardi’s estranged actress wife filed for divorce in November 2020 after a 21-year marriage. Following the split, the couple listed their Pasadena home for sale at a price of $13 million. Jayne, 51, has not been charged in the case against her husband.
After Girardi was disbarred in 2022, the State Bar of California reported it had received over 200 complaints against him alleging he misappropriated settlement money, abandoned clients or committed other serious ethical violations over the course of his four-decade career.
Girardi Keese collapsed in late 2020 after Girardi was accused in a lawsuit of embezzling money meant for clients the firm was representing in litigation over an airplane crash in Indonesia.
Girardi is in bankruptcy proceedings, as is the now-shuttered Wilshire Boulevard law firm that bore his name and faces more than $500 million in claims.
A federal judge in Chicago recently dismissed charges against Girardi stemming from the ex-attorney’s alleged misappropriation of more than $3 million in client funds owed to families of the victims of a Lion Air flight that crashed into the Java Sea in Indonesia in 2018.