amarante

The law deals with specific fact situations as applied to statutory law and/or precedent. In the specific instance of Erika, there is a huge amount of money that is owed to multiple creditors including his clients whose settlements were embezzled. The Bankruptcy Trustee is going to claw back all of the money that should never have been paid out. Erika's LLC can repay the loan of course. However she doesn't want to be personally on the hook for $28 million and the LLC obviously doesn't have the means to repay the loan. Therefore the Trustee will pierce the corporate veil using one of the legal standards which are used - and they will most probably be successful. So the LLC will be deemed to be a legal fiction and the loan will be viewed legally as a personal loan to Erika and not protected by the corporate sham enterprise.

Reality show whore that I am, I seem to remember a show about a group of "socialites" who lived in an affluent suburb of Huntsville. I could be confusing it with another show but I think there was a new transplant who was affiliated with a world renowned research facility and so that specific part of Alabama attracts people who don't fit the standard demographics of Alabama. I wasn't surprised that they could afford the house - It wasn't extravagant for people retiring on generous pensions after 30 and 20 years respectively. They seemed to be very shrewd and I assume they were able to save a lot during those years - living on base housing when it made sense - purchasing two homes where it made economic sense to purchase. As others have pointed out it is the young low ranking service people who don't make much but then that would be true of their contemporaries who aren't enlisted - either they are in college or working minimum wage jobs and struggling even worse since they don't have free medical care and guaranteed housing plus a salary. As others have pointed out, once you start advancing in the military your net income - including salary plus the significant benefits is not bad and the ability to retire with a fixed pension at a relatively young age also is a factor in one's eventual financial well being - they are probably ahead of the game as compared to people their age who stayed in private sector unless those people were very successful. Their pension is not subject to state tax - don't know how significant that is since there are other places that don't have income taxes but the cost of living is also low. I also wouldn't be surprised if the husband at least gets some kind of side gig to supplement income - he is probably at most in his late 40's/early 50's and would have very marketable skills.

No indoor dining in Los Angeles at that point but there would be no problem getting that kind of meal delivered as there was lots of takeout available. It didn't look like the kind of meal that needed a really professional catering firm - it looked like the kinds of dishes that are routinely delivered during the holidays - mashed potatoes, turkey, ham, sweet potatoes etc. Even the most lowly supermarket has that kind of spread available for takeout or delivery but you can also splurge at have it delivered by a high end restaurant. At least in Los Angeles a lot of the very expensive restaurants will have a special catering menu for takeout for Christmas and Thanksgiving.

The issue of "hobby" is also one I was thinking of. In her "memoir", she wrote that they were about to shut down her Erika Jayne entertainment stuff in 2011 before she was cast as a housewife because it was costing so much with no return. The Page Six data indicates that these payments for the entertainment stuff started in 2008 which would have meant approximately 3 years (at least). I believe that the test for a non-hobby is three years of consecutive losses which would mean that they were closing it down when they would have not been able to take further losses. Any tax experts can chime in because I am basing this on having a boss who owned an almond farm for the tax write off 😀 but I know that at a certain point you lose the ability to take the deduction. Interesting speculation as the motivation for the loan rather than gift but I tend to think it was structured as a loan so it wouldn't raise immediate red flags. I think that Tom never thought the house of cards would collapse so I don't think he thought that strategically. He was just scrambling to get enough money to pay off whoever needed to be paid in order to keep the whole thing floating. I think to the extent he thought at all he assumed he would be dead before it collapsed. The 2008 financial crisis brought Madoff down and I think Tom - however spry he remained - was still 81 years old and I imagine he wasn't getting the same kind of cases he was getting previously so there wasn't new money from settlements coming in to that could be used to pay off his creditors and the clients. As I recall he was borrowing huge amounts of money from firms that specialize in funding litigation. And they were among the creditors who forced his collapse. Again - as I recall - he was pledging the same collateral to multiple lenders which is a criminal offense. I believe that it is a Federal offense and I think the judge in Chicago referred a lot of stuff to the US Attorney's division in Chicago.

Which would explain the decline in her makeup and styling. Free glam squad just isn't as skilled as $25 million glam squad. It would also explain why she runs around town looking disheveled. Not that anyone needs to get dressed to run errands but I think her real hair is so fried that the only way to make it look human is with very elaborate extensions and styling which needs a stylist. Also even her makeup when she shows up for events doesn't look as flawless as it used to. BRAVO provides professional makeup and hair stylists when they do the confessionals but not when they are just filmed for ordinary production shoots.

There is definitely criminal liability because Tom STOLE from his clients. The issue is whether Erika is criminally liable. That is more difficult and I think that is not what Erika fears. She is fighting the civil liability which would force her to pay back all of the money that was paid to her AND would mean that she has no right to the community assets. She is trying to claim that she is the owner of the expensive jewelry, art and other valuable assets. As I recall she is also fighting in terms of retaining "her" share of the Pasadena mausoleum.

Just shows how misinformation never dies on the internet and why Sutton is rightfully concerned about how rumors and innuendos can ruin a reputation. The three sisters inherited the house. The house was appraised and Kyle paid the appraised value to Kathy and Kim and became the owner of the house many years ago. During that time she paid taxes, maintenance and improved the house. Kim and her family often stayed there. Generally when siblings inherit the parents' house, it has to be sold because it is not realistic to have the home owned and maintained by multiple people who have different interests and income. Kyle wanted to keep the home in the family so she bought it and during ownership Kim and her family were welcome to stay as if she still owned it. Kim in her alcoholic delusions resented that Kyle was living a stable life. The house wasn't flipped which implies getting a house at a cheap price and deliberately improving it to sell it quickly at a profit. It was sold more than a decade after the initial buy out of the sisters. Kim wasn't cheated out of anything. She is now living in a lovely condo which was purchased for her by Kyle because Kim is incapable of supporting herself.

It doesn't matter whether you or Erika knew about how the money was obtained. They are not holding you criminally liable - they are just taking back the money that was illegally or fraudulently obtained by your father because he had no legal right to the money. In Erika's case it is unlikely that she will be found guilty of CRIMINAL charges because that is a higher standard of proof which would involve proving that she had some degree of knowledge and/or complicity. But civil liability doesn't require that - you are not entitled to keep "gifts" that were stolen.

I have no real experience with this level of fraud but I would imagine that it was structured so that it theoretically looked like a valid business transaction. The money was NOT from Tom himself but was a loan from the LAW FIRM. There is no way you can justify a payment of $25 million from a law firm to an LLC owned by your wife. By structuring it as a titular loan to an innocuously named company - EJ Global (or whatever it was called), it wouldn't raise red flags to whoever was doing accounting. No one at the firm was doing any kind of forensic accounting or even the kind of standard audits that a publicly held corporation does. Also I don't believe there were any equity partners so the "books" wouldn't be carefully reviewed - they just needed to not raise blatant red flags.

The money wasn't invested. It was a loan from the law firm and Erika signed papers that the loan would be repaid. ETA if the money had been invested that would typically mean that the "investor" was investing money in exchange for a certain amount of shares which was obviously not what they wanted and would have been even a clearer case for the "owners" to owe the money "invested". Although normally an individual is not liable for the debts or other liabilities of a corporation, the corporate veil can be pierced (as the legal expression goes) if certain conditions are met There are a number of circumstances meriting piercing including not treating the corporation as a corporate identity - i.e. not keeping the paperwork; not dealing with the finances as a corporate entity; mingling accounts. I think this one would probably be successful A corporation or LLC's owners may also be held personally liable if they are found to have committed fraud. If the owner made fraudulent representations or omissions when applying for a business loan, he or she can be held personally responsible for the resulting harm to the creditor and risk losing personal assets. Alternatively, if a corporation or LLC was created to further a fraudulent cause or business, a court can pierce the corporate veil to get to the owners as well.

The reporters who wrote the original LA Times story were interviewed and stated they had checked and there was no record of any auto accident. Given the extent of the injuries there had to be an ambulance called and he must have been taken to a hospital and the hospital would report to police for that kind of serious injuries. It is astounding what a poor liar she is when all is said and done. She is lying on stuff that is easily checked and it is not as if any of these lies were critical to her defense. Surely a better set of lies could have accomplished obfuscating her complicity and not have been so ridiculously easy to puncture.

Page Six has a breakdown of exactly where the money went. I think Richards had subpoenaed the financial documents and so this information would have been gotten from the records of her company https://pagesix.com/2021/08/19/heres-how-erika-jaynes-company-allegedly-spent-25m/ A demand letter asking for the return of $28 million was sent to Erika and Erika has claimed that she doesn't owe the money - so much for sympathy for the victims since she knows at this point that all of those expenses were from payments owed to widows, orphans and burn victims What will be interesting are any amounts actually paid to Erika during the 10 years she was spending lavishly on her *career*. Did income from her BRAVO salary get paid to her corporation? What amount was she actually paid for her appearances - how much could someone make on club dates given that she spent $1,532,774.88 just for payments for dancers and choreographers.'' Erika wasn't kidding when she said there was more to come - one thing she was honest about. 🤣 ETA - The lawyer for the bankruptcy Trustee and Erika's lawyer issued the following statements to Page Six Ronald Richards, a lawyer representing the trustee, told Page Six in a statement that Jayne owes Girardi Keese over $28 million for her purchases plus interest. “It is immaterial whether she knew her husband had improperly diverted funds from clients,” Richards’ statement added. “What is relevant is that she received complete and total value for the receivable and a formal demand for payment was sent. We are hopeful she backs up her on-air statement last night that the victims come first. “ This is the crux of the case against Erika and what she fears - having to pay back all of the money that was fraudulently transferred to her. You can pierce the corporate veil and hold an individual responsible for the debts of an LLC under certain circumstances and I am pretty certain that those criteria will be met Jayne’s attorney, however, told Page Six in a separate statement that “Erika never had and does not have personal liability for any debts or obligations of EJ Global LLC, period.” Her attorney also called the trustee’s allegations a “malicious” and “reckless publicity grab,” as “none of the payments and no money whatsoever went to Erika.” “On behalf of Erika, we will seek all appropriate remedies against all responsible parties for claims such as these,” read the statement from Jayne’s attorney. This is Erika's position - she has not responsibility for the moment. What is totally bizarre is the attorney stating that "none of the payments went to Erika". I mean WTF - all of those payments were made on behalf of Erika. If I buy something at Saks, I can't claim that the money didn't go to me just because I used money to pay for stuff. 😂

Page Six has a breakdown of how Erika spent approximately $20 million over the past few years. It truly was expensive to be her. It is going to be hard for her to continue to claim lack of knowledge. https://pagesix.com/2021/08/19/heres-how-erika-jaynes-company-allegedly-spent-25m/

It is a very expensive real estate market so $600,000 would be on the lower end for a decent sized single family home. I wouid imagine that is why the search was limited to not very good houses. I have nothing against older homes but the ones they looked at weren’t that desirable and were essentially starter homes for people who wanted to live in New Rochelle. There wasn’t really the ability to remodel them into a more gracious home either as the layouts weren’t great and the interiors didn’t have a lot of period charm either. I think they were cheap homes when they were built. The city I went to college in had lots of this kind of housing stock that was never particularly nice housing. A step up from the Philadelphia row houses that were built fir the working poor but not by much

It's the reason why Erika is doing herself no favors by being on the show. Everything she has said and claimed - all of the inconsistencies - are recorded and will be used against her. It is astounding that anyone would like about easily disproved stuff like her claiming she wasn't contacted by the LA Times when the article actually stated that both she and Tom had been contacted for comments but hadn't responded. That is the kind of stuff that makes people realize that the person is a pathological liar - because they start lying about stuff that you know is factually incorrect. In the scheme of things most people don't listen or remember closely enough to catch people in lies - especially when the lies don't impact their lives. So Erika has gotten away with lies all her life because her the people she has interacted with don't care enough to listen closely to what she is saying and/or have no reason to call out her lies because it isn't important enough for them to antagonize her. By her own admission she had no friends. We have only seen her interacting with her paid entourage and her cast members and the cast members have never been her "friends" so this whole charade of their actually being friends is really nauseating - and again undermines the credibility.

They always run the previous week’s episode with a few new scenes before the airing of the new episode.

The Hulu documentary didn't come out until mid-June and I think was especially damning because it put a face on the victims as well as really laying out how Tom had operated and Erika's lifestyle. I live in Los Angeles and get the LA Times and so there have been a number of very serious articles in the past months which explore exactly what Tom did and how he was able to get away with it in terms of multiple complaints to the Bar. The person investigating him theoretically was in cahoots with him for many years. He was even on a segment of the show a few seasons ago when Mrs. Tom Girardi was shown meeting her husband at what I think was the Jonathan Club which is a private club downtown which a lot of lawyers and politically connected people are members of. The food is pretty terrible and when I was taken there once for lunch by a law firm I was very disappointed that I wasn't taken to one of the fabulous places there like Patina 😃 I don't think Rinna is ride or die because she is concerned with how she was perceived last season with Denise. She is now well past the point where she would be blamed for questioning Erika and in fact quite the opposite since she looks awful for what she is doing. I don't think she is supporting Erika for any moral or emotional reasons because Rinna is scum morally who would exploit any situation. I just don't understand what she fears from opposing Erika more than the backlash she is getting by continuing to support her. I mean on the show given it was filmed months ago okay - but she was still ride or die on WWHL last week.

I think they are also concerned with how they are going to look when it is all televised? Will they get flack for not being supportive enough? As information started getting out in real time, they obviously were starting to worry how to balance being perceived as "supportive" with not aligning themselves with something that is morally unjustifiable. And they are very uncomfortable trying to straddle the fence so that their public images emerge intact. Sutton obviously has gotten good advice and is a smart cookie and realizes she doesn't want to be associated with this stink show. Like Kathy who "doesn't know Erika", they are comfortable with not aligning themselves with Erika. I think Sutton has a moral compass - I am not sure Kathy actually has any kind of moral compass but she sure as hell has no desire to be associated with Erika. While I don't believe in conspiracy theories, there is something about Rinna's continued unquestioned - almost defiant support of Erika that leads me to suspect there is something going on that is more than support for a friend. What she is doing is way more than the other cowardly housewives who are afraid to create a scene that is being televised but are willing to express significant doubts in confessionals. But Rinna is all in - they do share a business manager so Rinna might be justifiably afraid of buried bodies - but isn't Harry Hamlin smarter than this and wouldn't he be telling her that supporting Erika now with everything known is not a good look. Of course who actually is a "fan" of Rinna at this point since she has done so much to alienate a normal "fan base". I would imagine that people view her social media as a sort of train wreck which probably only incentivizes her to remain controversial and offensive.

I agree that people were limiting household help during the pandemic - and actually many people I know are limiting it again with the surge in the Delta variant and breakthrough infections even among those fully vaccinated. My friends paid their long term housekeepers NOT to show up and bought Roombas 😀 I do think Kyle actually cooks and probably did a lot more cooking for her family because everyone was eating at home. However, I don't think she cooked that kind of multi-course meal for the large group. Even though the individual elements were not complex, it is really exhausting to cook multiple dishes and have them all ready on time and ready to be served. Those large tin containers with the multiple industrial looking warmers just looked like the way catered food is delivered and set up. It's quite a bit different than when a caterer prepares a meal on site or when an individual makes Thanksgiving dinner

One of the other problems with blaming dementia for Tom is that there are lots of witnesses who will be able to testify that they saw no change in his behavior - or more importantly - change in his cognitive functions. He was actually giving speeches before professional meetings up to the end. I am not sure what the timeline was for those speeches but one of the lawyers interviewed on the Hulu documentary described interacting with him and viewing the speeches and doubting he was impaired. I realized that AZ patients can have lucid moments but it seems unlikely that he would be able to have carried on as a professional person as well as meeting multiple people in his persona of big shot/power broker and NO ONE would have noticed. I don't know exactly when Erika knew ALL of the sordid details but all of this coverup - starting with the "divorce" is definitely a plan by the two of them to coordinate in an attempt to build a defense and to preserve assets. Tom was deposed at least ONCE several months before the divorce - this was the deposition in which he claimed he had no money even though he had once had $80 million - $50 million in cash. She was also repeatedly subpoenaed to be depose during this period. However clueless she is attempting to paint herself and how removed she was, at that point even a dumb wife would ask her husband - or more importantly - her attorneys what this was all about. Any one who is deposed generally hires an attorney to be with them at the deposition to protect their interests and offer advice on how to answer. This is part of why Sutton's attorney advised her to remove herself from any entanglement or appearance of insider knowledge. It doesn't take much to be put on the witness/deposition list. And left unstated because they can't break the fourth wall - Sutton is NOT Erika's friend. She is a co-worker with whom she has a working relationship in which they are both paid to interact with each other. I have had "friendships" with co-workers but I sure as hell would have distanced myself if they were involved in something like this because I don't owe them the kind of loyalty I do towards someone who is actually a friend. I am just interested in how this is all going to play out during the reunion. I know how Erika will deflect in terms of not answering any difficult questions because of legal issues which is what Tre was able to do. But with BH almost the ONLY relevant part of the show is how the ladies continued to support Erika as more information came in and how they continued to support her AFTER the show when the information became even more damning.

On a shallow note, Erika’s face looked bad at the dinner party Is it because she doesn’t have the expensive glam squad or because her stress level is impacting her face? Of course the picture in the attic might not be working its magic any longer and so her face is reflecting her moral depravity. 🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️

I don’t think Kyle cooked that meal. I think it was delivered by a catering firm which just sent over one or two people to physically set up the food. It looked like the way those kinds of meals are delivered as the catering company doesn’t expect to get back any of the packaging. I don’t know what it is like in other areas but there is a lot of those kinds of packages for holiday dinners in Los Angeles. I think Kyle can cook but preparing that many different dishes is a lot of work even though the dishes themselves are pretty simple. Cooking a lasagna and slicing up some bread for an informal dinner is completely different than preparing multiple dishes for a holiday type of feast Also it looked like whatever meats had been presliced and just put in the foil containers. No evidence of a turkey carcass or ham in the kitchen.

It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry was pissed that his dentist converted to Judaism so he could tell jokes - or at least that is how I vague remember the plot :-). Leah's conversion storyline makes less than zero sense. I ask this as an atheist Jew. Granted I lack any kind of spiritual curiosity so I have never sought to find "meaning" in any kind of religion. The best aspects of Judaism are those ones that celebrate making the world a better place - the stuff that helped build labor unions and backed progressive candidates but those values are shared by many people without any kind of religious affiliation. But why anyone would want to connect with the empty meaningless rituals especially when the person isn't observing even the most basic mitzvahs - let alone all of the 613 :-). She isn't even observing what are called the big three - the defining ones - keeping kosher; observing the Shabbos and ritual purity (Niddah). It would be like someone deciding to convert to Catholicism without any belief in either the Holy Trinity, the role of priests or confession and communion. There are plenty of lapsed Catholics who are my friends who aren't observant but it would be odd for someone to convert without any kind of emotional and spiritual connection with a religion's rituals. Otherwise just communicate with god or whatever gods or being or higher powers you think exist in whatever way works for you - you don't need an organized religion with a set of rituals and very defined belief systems.

Putting aside any issues of hypocrisy, I found Leah's discussion of getting her daughter into an elite private school to be laughable - unless she has some major pull somewhere. Schools like Brearley, Horace Mann, Dalton, Chapin etc. are more competitive than Harvard. The Von Kemps had a storyline in the first season about trying to get their spawn into a private school. No mention of trying to get into one of the free schools like Hunter, Bronx Science or Stuyvesant or even one of the many magnet schools for those kids who are interested in specialized fields like arts, broadcasting or science.

They don’t own the house which the three sisters inherited because Kyie sold it several years ago. Kyie and Mauricio bought the house in La Quinta a few years ago. They could afford to buy to buy a much nicer home and that is what they did.