amarante

She is definitely now longer in the billionaire trophy wife category. She would still be able to snag a wealthy guy but I doubt that she would be able to recreate her past excessive life style since they were effectively blowing through $100 million of stolen money in a relatively short period of time. I think any rumors of cheating are just red herrings and have nothing to do with the dynamics of their marriage at any time nor would Tom's cheating have upset her since the marriage was completely transactional. As long as the money flowed, she was fine. I don't think Erika is a particularly sexual person as I think the whole Pat The Puss persona was a joke and not erotic in the least - at least for Erika. I don't think she had many straight admirers as that wasn't her audience. Like others I am not surprised that she is a conniving amoral person but I am surprised that she is being so stupid in terms of playing out the PR aspects of this. Who in the world except Brian Moylan is buying her act. There are so many ways she could have played this which would have provided her with a more sympathetic look without endangering her legal case. I am withholding judgment on what the other housewives are actually going to do since we are watching episodes which were filmed before most of the worst was revealed. I am not sure whether at this point it was public that Tom's deposition had him saying he had no money left. Of course there is no defending why they were ruthless about an alleged fling by Denise and the whole ridiculous Puppygate matter but theoretically - at least during filming - I thin there would be nothing other than offering a sympathetic ear to someone who is divorcing their husband. I do think some of the housewives - even at this early stage - are not committing totally to supporting her but - Garcelle and Sutton tentatively and Crystal was very noticeably silent and not really cooing over it. Rinna is the main cheerleader with Kyle supportive but showing a tiny amount of skepticism or surprise over what Erika is revealing and how it is completely unlike what they were presented with previously.

Erika's rental kitchen is extremely dated. Lots of give aways as there is tile on the counters which means it hasn't had a full renovation since the 1980's. The home was originally built in 1925 and looks as though the 1980’s was when it was last remodeled - judging by the finishes. Also the appliances are old as the wall oven has dials and isn't digital. Cabinets are also fairly old as there is a pull out cutting board which is pretty retro so it seems as though they just refinished or refaced the original boxes. Bathrooms as well weren't given a full renovation as they also have tile counters and a small shower with a chromed framed enclosure. the tile work is also the cheapest 4" x 4" and doesn't extend to any of the walls. It also has really funky looking slate tiles in what is probably the master bath. The Saltillo tile in the kitchen and dining area is probably the best part of the flooring although they did refinish what was the original wood floors. Ironically it is actually a more attractive home than the horrible mausoleum in Pasadena. The grounds of the Pasadena home are beautiful - like being in your own private park but the home itself is unappealing and the stuff that Erika seems to have done like the red silk bath tub and the beauty parlor is completely lacking in any charm. The bones of the rental are really great - nothing as charming as a Spanish Colonial from this period. Her rental is much more desirable in terms of the market than the Pasadena funeral parlor. It would be relatively easy to do some cosmetic work - FWIW it is worth more than the $1.5 million people cite as that was what it was sold for in 2014 and the market in Los Angeles as in most places is steaming hot. Given the location it would sell for well over $2 million at this point I would think. Whoever buys the Pasadena white elephant will have to spend millions in order to get it to any level of livability.

The Cottonwood case would be a hard one for me if I were a juror. As a viewer of Dateline and other true crime stories, there are innumerable incidents of spouses/significant others who are theoretically mild mannered law abiding couldn't hurt a fly types who actually do kill their partners and could have gotten away with it but for one bit of "bad luck" which implicated them and one could get beyond the reasonable doubt threshold. I think he did it and he was just lucky enough to have gotten away with it. He had ample time to get rid of whatever knife he used. I know it is wrong but when a spouse is killed in their house and there is no sexual assault; no robbery and no motive for a random stranger to break into a house and kill a person in bed while the rest of the household is sleeping, I just think the spouse did it because the alternative is too far of a stretch. However in good conscience, I don't know whether as a sworn juror I could actually vote to convict based on a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

One was a captain and the other was an engineer. Fire fighters in metropolitan areas make good money especially at the level of a captain. I would imagine they each make in excess of $100,000 easily so they are grossing at least $200,000 a year if not more. They also have great benefits like top of the line medical insurance. They were also selling a hime they had owned for at least ten years so they would have enormous equity. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had no mortgage when they sold which means they would have a very large down payment available. And I was shocked - just shocked - when they chose the home that was *mysteriously* in the middle of construction with only the lower level done but the mysterious flipper did nothing about the upper levels which had ugly but very functional bathrooms and what looked like new carpeting 😂😂😂Yes shocked as if the ideal configuration for horses and the location being relatively close to town already wasn’t a giveaway. I don’t know what boarding costs are in Livermore but there would also be significant money saved by having your horses stabled at home. The amount saved would be available for mortgage payments in someone’s budget.

Wood framing is used in many buildings in Los Angeles. They just can't use wood above four stories because of fire since that is as high as ladders go. It has nothing to do with earthquakes as framed housing is safe in an earthquake provided it is built to Code and has appropriate foundations. What is unsafe in an earthquake are masonry buildings and those are required to be retrofitted to make them safe in an earthquake. But my original post was addressing the difference between an older building like Kristin's penthouse which had exterior fire escapes and the new construction which used the steel fire stairs for roof access and since they are fire stairs they had to be able to be used by anyone. In my building you can't lock the fire doors and you can't keep them open - that is so they are available in an emergency and so that smoke and fire doesn't travel to different floors which is the purpose of having metal doors. Exterior doors in my unit (i.e. the front door of my unit to the hall) must also be metal and they must be able to close automatically - again this is for fire Code as they do not want the possibility of fire or smoke entering a unit if the door was left open inadvertently in a panic. There are a whole set of construction laws for highrises because of fire laws as well as other obvious considerations. When I remodeled I could not use any wood framing even in my interior spaces where it wasn't structural because of fire Code. Even my new walk in shower was framed with steel in the walls - the actual shower door is frameless glass LOL

In my experience, wealthy people don’t have mortgages. They don’t need to use their homes to fund other investments. Most wealthy people pay cash for their homes. This is especially true because there is not even any tax deduction for interest payments above a relatively small amount. At any rate, it impacts Rinna because it indicates that she really needs that BRAVO paycheck to keep a roof over her head literally. 😂😂 She has no f you money unlike Kyle, Sutton, Kathy or Crystal. I would suspect she needs it more than Garcelle who seems to be more in demand with other entertainment gigs and also just generally seems to be shrewder in terms of her life in many ways. I don’t think Garceloee would sell her soul to stay on the show. Of course it is moot since Rinna sold her soul long ago and there is nothing she wouldn’t do for fame or money.

Why do you think it is an undesirable location? It is in Beverly Hills PO. The house is probably worth at least $5 million and it sits on almost an acre of prime acreage in the hills above Beverly Hills. The issue isn't the size of the mortgage - it's that there is any mortgage at all for a house that was bought by Harry prior to the marriage. I think he bought it in 1987. At that point it should have been paid off rather than to have a mortgage which requires them to work. Also people are talking as if this is some kind of modest home. I think it is five bedrooms with at least four bathrooms and isn’t modest by any normal standards. While it isn’t 10,000 square feet it was always a home for a relatively affluent person. While I find Erika’s narrative of now living in a hovel to be ridiculous, her current rental was originally built for a normal middle class family. It is just a three bedroom, two bathroom home and the neighborhood was originally inhabited by regular middle class families. Because of the location, it has escalated in value ajd it was very nicely renovated including the addition of a pool which it wouldn’t have had when it was first built. Lisa’s home was always a home for a relatively wealthy person because of the size, the location and the enormous lot in prime hills above Beverly Hills. It is effectively in Beverly Hills although it is outside of the city limits which means you don’t get to use the Beverly Hills public schools and you aren’t patrolled by the city police force but by Los Angeles city and county. They live in what is known as Beverly Hills Post Office and is still extremely desirable especially with acreage and a view.

FWIW, a parking pad is when there is a portion of the backyard that has concrete and can be accessed from the alley so a homeowner has the option of using it to park or using it as a backyard space. In my experience, the ability to find street parking in a major city really depends on the exact configuration of the block. If the homes are used by single families, it is generally relatively easy to find street parking because the ratio of cars to curb space is not bad. If the homes were subdivided into apartments, it is more difficult especially if they are row homes built before the era of autos so there are no drive ways or off street parking. The other wild card is whether the block is near a commercial street. Parking is often impossible even on streets with single family homes AND driveways if they are the ones closest to a commercial street. Some places have parking for residents with stickers and placards that free up parking for residents and even their guests - e.g. a resident will have two guest placards which visitors can use if they are visiting. Otherwise there is no parking on the block because they don't want cheapskates trying to avoid parking fees by parking on their residential block and hogging all the spots. I do find it odd that street parking is easy across from a park. In my experience, many people drive to parks in the city. I live close to Runyon Canyon in Los Angeles and parking is impossible - of course for many reasons - but also because of the number of people who drive there in order to hike the trails.

I don’t think Randy was body shaming when he steered his assistant to another fabric. Randy has dressed larger women in figure revealing dresses and, at least to me, seems to genuinely love women even if they aren’t model sizes. I think the issue was that silk charmeuse is unflattering to even thin women because it is so unforgiving in terms of showing everything. I mean it wouid shiw the outline of your belly button 😂 The same cut in a different fabric is more flattering Gok didn’t put charmeuse on his women and he even added a bit of lace in a few strategic areas. To me there is a huge difference between recognizing that some dresses are more flattering and dressing anyone over a size 2 in a tent. Enhancing through dressing is different than disguising out of shame.

FWIW I live in a high-rise and floors are constructed of solid concrete and there is no noise from anywhere - very different construction for a variety of reasons including fire laws from framed construction. You can't have wood framing in any structure over I believe four stories - at least in Los Angeles and I would imagine that would also be true in NYC. As I posted, I am not an expert in construction but have picked up some stuff from dealing with zoning and permits. You don't have to walk up six floors to avoid dealing with noisy neighbors above you :-)

I am not a housing expert but I think the Kirsten penthouse had an exterior fire escape as most of the housing in that neighborhood was built under either the Old Law or New Law Tenement Laws which had to do with ventilation. You can get to the roof from a fire escape but the issue that was really strange with the Tyler unit is that your access was through what was public fire stairs. It would be very uncommon to have a penthouse built on one of those old buildings because they are walkup buildings with no elevators . I had friends who lived in the top floors of East Village tenements but we were young and paying $60 per month rent 😂😂 I find it utterly bizarre that anyone would spend in excess of a two million dollars in a walk-up building for the penthouse 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️I lived in a loft on Fourth Avenue and was grateful for my elevator to the tenth floor 😀 The unit the germaphobe was viewing was a new building and was built with an interior fire stairs. Those are the kinds of stairs that are metal construction with fire doors and are required by Code.

They couldn’t do it because that was a fire stair and other people in the building needed access to the roof for an emergency. That is why they explained that this was an alternative to an interior stair case which would have been private. I think that roof exterior space is probably not used as much as people think they will because it is inconvenient to shlep things up and down especially with a small spiral staircase. I have a large balcony in a temperate climate with an incredible view and I never use it and I almost never see or hear anyone in my building use their balconies. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️Very occasionally if someone has a large party a few people will go out to smoke because no one smokes inside anymore. 😂😂

I was wrong in terms of why she had to crawl for her QVC bosses but she didn’t technically insult the QVC shoppers directly although she obviously thinks they are contemptible 🤫🤫 She had to take this down but nothing on the internet goes away Rinna’s comments include: “I’m convinced that the haters/trolls are all fat hoarders with 50 cats.” “With no teeth, and they couldn’t find their vagina if they tried.” “Well all you nasty people need to go.” “So get the fuck off my page. Now

Her clothing line is still on QVC. As I recall she said that she had gotten flack because of her argument about the MeToo movement and the appointment of Supreme Court Justices. I am astounded that there is actually a market for her clothing which is really ugly but then there are a bunch of "designers" on QVC who seem to be successful selling hideous stuff.

Putting aside whether Erika knew or not the issue is that to some extent Tre's crimes were victimless. I realize that there are victims when one is committing mortgage fraud but it just doesn't rise to the same level of moral outrage for most people that literally robbing widows and orphans does. I don't think anyone would start a gofundme for Wells Fargo whereas I think the burn victim (for example) could probably raise money for operations and medical care. So it is difficult for most people to watch Erika living an expensive lifestyle and crying her crocodile tears without doing anything to even acknowledge that there are victims and that she was - at best - living off money stolen from his clients. Tre also made restitution after being released from prison while Erika is doing everything possible to paint herself as a victim. Because of the way the show edits timelines it is really hard to know when some stuff was filmed. I mean when was the #mascaragate scene actually filmed because we know that stuff is routinely edited out of timelines in order to create a more evocative storyline. So it's hard to know what Erika knew or even what the other housewives knew during certain scenes. ETA I wanted to clarify by differentiating between what the housewives knew during certain episodes since they would know what the general public knew whereas Erika obviously was concealing ajd os still concealing what she knew and when she knew it. However, she is thus essentially playing a game in which she is responding to what is out there when a scene is being filmed as well as playing a longer game of trying to provide excuses or defenses for what hasn’t yet been revealed to the public. I think that is one reason that she is going off as completely inauthentic except to her most sycophantic fans since even she can’t get all of the stories straight or even know how best to react. It is the reason why the best thing she could have done was to leave the show and exit social media.

The woman was awful - what a way to give your daughters an eating disorder by telling a girl that she is shortwaisted and has fat thighs. I mean even if that were true if would be terrible but this was a girl who had a lovely figure even by "rigorous" standards and she was being taught that her body wasn't good enough. Really sad and toxic. I did watch Dance Moms and remember Kendall from the series. The mother was always a pushy obnoxious stage mother. Kendall was a beautiful child with dark hair - she reminded me a bit then of Elizabeth Taylor as a child with the coloring. It's too bad that she kind of ruined her looks by giving herself the ombre blonde hair when she was much more striking as a dark haired beauty - now she just looks like she is emulating the Kardashians. The irony is that Kim K - whatever one thinks of her - has maintained her dark hair except for what are one off appearances in blonde wigs or whatever.

Ron Richards, who is the attorney for the Bankruptcy Trustee hired to investigate where Erika has been squirreling away the assets had an interesting tweet today in which he alluded to Rinna's possible reasons for defending Erika. At this point the facts are out there regarding the embezzlement by Tom and at the very least Erika has shown herself to be morally repulsive in terms of her social media posts in which she continues to portray herself as a victim and her legal actions to attempt to keep all of the money that was stolen. At this point every single thing she owns was due solely to money stolen from victims. At any rate Richards essentially provided a possible reason why Rinna is so vociferous in her defense of Erika even now. Erika and Rinna share the same business manager/accounting firm - who knows what kinds of bodies are buried. The accounting firm has been subpoenaed as well as Erika's current landlord since there might be something suspect in the lease of her "shack". Also - FWIW - evidently Rinna has a huge mortgage. While there is no shame in having a mortgage, it is certainly strange that there is a mortgage on a home that Harry Hamlin bought more than 20 years ago. They must have taken out a sizable second mortgage or refinanced it at some point which means they are really essentially living beyond their means. Rinna and Harry need all the paychecks they can get. ETA Ron Richards added this tweet in terms of what the mortgage is on Rinna’s house. That is a huge mortgage and while I am sure the house is worth more than that, it means they need a lot of money each month just for living expenses. At that stage of life, they should have no mortgage at all. People I know who aren’t *rich* who have lived in their homes for 25 years or so don’t have any mortgage. Again no shame in having a mortgage but only that they owe so much on a house that was bought years ago means they were living behind their means and don’t have the ability to retire on their assets. We forgot the one of the biggest victims of the meanness by the others. LR has $3,450,000 recorded on a small home. It would have to sell for over 850 per square ft to clear it.

It depends on what kind of partnership exists. Traditionally law firms really operated as partnerships in which each of the partners jointly managed the firm and divided the profits. Now there are all kinds of law firm organizations and some partners are partners in name only. Some partners are each separate corporations to limit their liability. What Tom's SIL is claiming is that even though he was a partner in name, he effectively was just an employee and had no power and was not privy to the finances of the firm since he was paid a salary. Whether that is true of not - who knows but it would be pretty easily proven one way or another since people would be able to testify as to how the firm was run. At any rate, he is being sued and will have to prove that he didn't have knowledge of how funds were being not paid to the clients. There is a LOT of moral guilt to pass around as I suspect that Tom's SIL at best had a don't see attitude as he just cashed his very large paychecks and took advantage of the perks of his employment. Tom was the rainmaker and none of what the other lawyers would have been doing would have needed great legal skills or knowledge. Any paralegal could have done their jobs.

Who said it was right. I would argue that they are more morally corrupt than Tre and Juicy. I was merely pointing out that Tre and Juicy actually committed a very easy provable case of bankruptcy fraud when they signed the petition which misstated their assets and concealed them. Very blank and white. As of now there isn't any claim of bankruptcy fraud and I doubt there will be. But what Tom and Erika have done is far worse. Tom clearly embezzled money - no doubt of that. Whether Erika can be proved to have sufficient knowledge to be deemed to be a co-conspirator depends on the evidence. There is no doubt that she is civilly liable and morally corrupt. And that she is in worse shape than Tre who had a relatively small amount of restitution to pay for when she got out of jail. Her Bravo salary and side hustles were sufficient for her to hold on to her house, get back on her feet and retain what appears to be an upper middle class style of life. In the realm of money - even when Tre and Juicy were "flaunting" their wealth in the first seasons, they weren't really exhibiting the kind of wealth that Tom and Erika were pretending to have. Tre lived in a $2,000,000 home and drove leased luxury cars. I mean it was all pretty attainable on her BRAVO salary and her social media stuff plus her book sales. She was and remains a real hustler.

Tre and Juicy signed bankruptcy papers under penalty of perjury in which they hid assets. I don't think Tom's conservators are going to do something like that. It's equivalent to the difference between criminal tax fraud and just claiming a deduction that the IRS doesn't think is valid. Erika is claiming that her assets belong to her - the court will decide whether that is so. It's quite tangled because of the "divorce" and whether it was a sham since the date of legal separation impacts rights. Also it is a "gray" area in terms of whether valuable gifts to a spouse are separate property or are part of the community property.

Ever since November or December 2020 it has been major news stories starting with the Chicago law firm that sued him back then on behalf of fees owed to their clients. I think they represented some of the victims of the Indonesian plane crash. The Los Angeles Times has carried quite a few very comprehensive stories about Tom - these aren't "scandal" types of stories but investigative reports delineating exactly what Tom did; the numerous complaints against him and how it was covered up because of his power with influential people. Just this past week, the LA Times had an article on the guy in the State Bar who was supposed to be investigating ethical violations and how he was "in bed" with Tom for many years. And by "proof" - the poor guy who had a $12 million judgment because of his horrific burns has a lien against Tom and the law firm because Tom was paid the settlement and never paid the guy. That Tom embezzled the funds isn't in dispute - the only issue is how this guy will manage to collect his money since there are so many people victimized and only a finite amount of assets. That is why the Bankruptcy Trustee is suing Erika to claw back amounts that she was paid by Tom. Tom has no assets at this point except the Pasadena home that is currently on the market. Realistically he has no ability to earn money so that is a dead end. Erika is the one with the deep pockets because she has the whatever is left of the $25 million given to her company (or loaned) by Tom plus all of the jewelry, art, clothing etc. that are part of the joint assets. AND she has the ability to earn a living so if there is a judgment against her - which there will be - she will be on the hook and have to pay for it out of all of her future income. This doesn't depend on whether she "knew" of the embezzlement but only needs to show that the assets were part of the community property and not Erika's separate property. I personally think based on the law and the facts that it will be difficult for Erika to win a case in which she proves that these assets can't be clawed back and used to repay the victims owed.

They didn't actually own any private planes - they were leased. It is not even clear whether they had 100% possession of the planes as it is not uncommon for people to essentially have time shares of planes. After all owning your own private plane is not only expensive but really not needed by most private people because how often are people actually FLYING. Lots of times the plane is owned by the corporation which makes more sense since it is then available to all top level executives. I don't think Tom will wind up actually physically spending time in a jail cell because of his age. Bernie Madoff was 70 when he was carted off and there is a huge difference especially since Tom would be even older by the time it was actually adjudicated. His life is essentially over - he is in disgrace and fallen from the lofty albeit corrupt temples of power he inhabited. Even if he managed to stash money somewhere off shore he is not going to be able to use it as he has got both the government and all of the creditors and victims of his scam watching every purchase and making sure that his life style has no indicia of wealth. Tre unlike Erika was able to recover financially but she wasn't on the hook for the same enormous amount of money Erika is on the hook for. Tre maybe owed $1 million or so in restitution and she is reputed to make $1,000,000 per season plus all of her social media side hustles. Not a defender of Tre but Tre didn't leave a trail of orphans, widows, maimed individuals and other really sympathetic characters. I am not saying that bankruptcy fraud is victimless but it truly doesn't compare with what Tom (and Erika) were doing.

That was her opinion which she expressed numerous times over her seasons. I remember it because I am always suspicious of women who claim to not have any female friends because my experience is completely the opposite. I mean with Erika it essentially means she would have no friends because she obviously isn't going to have platonic friendships with straight men because that is really preposterous. Neither the Mrs. Girardi persona nor the Pat My Puss persona are the type to actually have "friendships" with men So she has her glam squad that she paid for and her cast mates who she is now claiming to be friends conveniently even though up until relatively recently she didn't exhibit any real signs of friendship with any of them. I realize they all have strategic alliances but I do think Kyle was actually friends with Lisa V until it all got tossed aside and she does have the long term friendship with the morally corrupt Faye Resnick. Garcelle has genuine relationships with other women which is why I think she was so blown away by Rinna's willingness to trash Denise last season. I don't think Garcelle is ride or die to a fault but I don't think she would ever gratuitously go out of her way to trash someone who was her friend. She would just remain silent. I think the way she is playing it with the whole Erika situation since she isn't really supporting her or trashing her - she is just saying essentially that no one has information although she didn't hesitate to state the obvious that she was shocked that a marriage that was based on transactional gold digging didn't wait until Tom died. Of course that was before anyone knew what was to come - whether the divorce was a sham or the well had run dry - the divorce was NOT based on years of mistreatment by Tom. I am truly curious as to how this will play out in terms of Rinna and Kyle as more and more irrefutable "receipts" become public.

I don’t know what kind of proof you need. It is well documented that he received major settlements and has not paid out to the clients to which they are owed.

Whose son? Girardi's son in law worked for him and "quit" when the whole house of cards was first exposed. Of course there really was nothing to quit. The son in law claims that he knew nothing about any fraudulent practices because even though they were partners, they were not privy to anything relating to the finances of the firms. Sounds pretty fishy to me and it is hard to imagine they wouldn't have some degree of understanding that the lifestyle being led by Tom and Erika was not sustainable based on legal fees actually earned and not settlements stolen and embezzled.