Erika Girardi/Erika Jayne: Let them eat cake

[hoodooznoodooz]

14 hours ago, Salacious Kitty said:

When Rinna was on WWHL recently, she said that she basically got the hell outta there when Erika was served. What a coward.

Yup. I think Rinna gave Andy Cohen some ridiculous explanation, such as she was wearing her mask, the camera, bologna. Does Erika’s skull contain enough brain cells to help her realize that Rinna is not really a friend? Or is the otherwise constant sycophantic dynamic enough to compensate for this?

[RealHousewife]

Responding here from Rosé Colored Glasses, as my post is Erika specific.

On 8/5/2022 at 6:08 PM, tranquilidade said:

Does anyone else find it sad a pathetic that Erika talks about material things and sex but never mentions love?  I wonder why she can't find anyone to love her?   She makes me think of Anna Nicole Smith.

28 minutes ago, ladle said:

Hmm, I actually don't care about that. Yes, all of the dick talk is super eye-rolly and screams "LOOK AT ME!" like everything Erika does, so that's annoying. But I judge Erika for being an awful human being who is complicit in the bilking of widows and orphans, not for being interested in casual sex and uninterested in love. 

I hear ya, however I see a connection there. Erika isn't merely a woman uninterested in a romantic relationship who has sexual needs. I don't think anyone here would judge her for that. Certainly not me as a fellow single woman who's still young. I also agree the dick talk is cringy but not horrifying like Tom's crimes. But I see a connection between the woman whose first concern is a man's wallet (followed by his dick), who left her little boy to go to LA, and who's complicit in stealing from orphans and widows. Sometimes she comes across heartless and unable to love or even care for another human being. 

I obviously don't know Erika. Maybe a part of her loved Tom at one point. Maybe leaving her son was painful for her but she felt she had to. Maybe she really had no idea what Tom was up to and has had a horrible way of showing she cares about his victims. But as much as she didn't want to be judged for marrying a much older man and being a gold digger, the stuff that comes out of her mouth doesn't help. 

[ladle]

7 minutes ago, RealHousewife said:

Sometimes she comes across heartless and unable to love or even care for another human being. 

Oh I absolutely do agree with this! 

[Hiyo]

Rinna probably ran out of there faster than Kyle did during the Amsterdam dinner party fight.

[RealHousewife]

1 minute ago, Hiyo said:

Rinna probably ran out of there faster than Kyle did during the Amsterdam dinner party fight.

My first thought was that gif lol

[Keywestclubkid]

Started watching The Good Wife for the first time and they keep telling people that they can’t seem sympathetic to whoever is suing them because it could imply guilt… so I understand that part .. and implying that they are lying would be a way to try to sway the public on a National television show in your favor if it weren’t for the fact that she is not likable.. she is shooting herself in the foot… 

[hoodooznoodooz]

I think that this, in fact, is a huge component. She’s not likable. The WWCL guys point out that it’s not even fun to watch her when she’s under the influence. One of them says that he always enjoys the sloppy drunkenness on Absolutely Fabulous, but Erika bores him or makes him roll his eyes (paraphrasing).

[Keywestclubkid]

43 minutes ago, hoodooznoodooz said:

I think that this, in fact, is a huge component. She’s not likable. The WWCL guys point out that it’s not even fun to watch her when she’s under the influence. One of them says that he always enjoys the sloppy drunkenness on Absolutely Fabulous, but Erika bores him or makes him roll his eyes (paraphrasing).

And you know her lawyers have to be telling her how important optics would be .. I just am flabbergasted that she would chose to walk out with a big middle finger up .. 

[Baltimore Betty]

On 7/26/2022 at 8:50 PM, goofygirl said:

What's funny too is that toward the end it looks like she's walking with RINNA!!  Guess now Rinna can run tellDAT to the rest of the ho's!!

I bet Rinna was texting Kyle the second that went down!

[CrinkleCutCat]

On 8/6/2022 at 1:21 AM, WhatAmIWatching said:

  Reveal spoiler

The settlement Tom Girardi reached with a drug company in 2005 was characteristically large and righteous: some $66 million the famed Los Angeles trial attorney won on behalf of patients who said a diabetes medicationcaused liver failure and other maladies. 

At Girardi’s suggestion, a nationally renowned mediator was appointed to ensure proper distribution of the funds. For overseeing the settlement, retired California appellate Justice John K. Trotter Jr. and his private judging firm, JAMS (formerly known as Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services), received a $500,000 cut.

Yet in the years that followed, Girardi diverted money Trotter was hired to safeguard for purposes that were highly questionable and even, in the recent assessment of one federal judge, “a crime.” Girardi sent $750,000 to a jeweler for what Bankruptcy Court records show was the purchase of an enormous pair of diamond earrings for his wife, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Girardi. He dipped into the settlement account again and again for supposed case expenses, sometimes writing multiple seven-figure checks to his law firm in the same week, according to the records.
 

Ultimately, he took more than $15 million — about 22% of the settlement — for what he described as “costs,” according to a check registry filed in court. Legal experts told The Times the pattern of withdrawals indicated fraud.

Girardi’s firm collapsed a year and a half ago amid evidence that one of the most respected lawyers in California had stolen from clientsfor decades — the largest legal scandal in state history. 

A Times investigation drawing on newly released internal firm records found that his unethical practice depended on private judges, who occupy a secretive corner of the legal world. Girardi’s reliance on them raises questions about whether there are enough safeguards in this highly confidential and largely unregulated industry to protect the public from predatory attorneys.
 

Retired judges, including Trotter, played prominent roles in administering large settlements from which Girardi is accused of stealing money. Several worked for Irvine-based JAMS, the world’s largest privatemediation and arbitration company.

Girardi paid private judges at JAMS and elsewhere up to $1,500 an hour to work on mass tort settlements that often involved hundreds or thousands of clients and tens of millions of dollars, according to court records. When pressed about missing funds, he often invoked the jurists’ impressive credentials. The willingness of the former judges to stand by Girardi in court — and sometimes join him at his lavish junkets and boozy parties —enhanced his aura of invincibility.

In some instances examined by The Times, it is not clear that the retired judges knew Girardi was using them as a shield to fend off scrutiny, such as a 2018 letter in which he blamed delays in paying clients on Trotter’s heart problems. But in others, there is evidence the retired judges were aware of misconduct allegations and assisted him anyway.

In 2001, a former judge helped Girardi improperly siphon $3.5 million from a settlement for workers of Lockheed Corp. (which later became Lockheed Martin Corp.) by signing a sham “order” to release the money to him, according to a copy of the document and correspondence from a bank executive filed in court.

In 2014, a retired state Supreme Court justice then at JAMS was drawn into an attempt to mislead cancer survivors about more than $1 million missing from their settlement. Girardi’s firm, Girardi Keese, told clients that the former justice had instructed the firm to “hold back” the money. The claim was false, but the jurist did not inform the clients or the trial court and fought a subpoena for months before finally being forced to testify under oath. Only then did he disclose that Girardi was lying.

Despite the wide power of private judges in the legal system, no government agency specifically monitors or polices their conduct. Retired jurists often agree to abide by provisions of the Code of Judicial Ethics when working as a referee, special master or similar position, but they do not fall under the purview of the Commission on Judicial Performance, the state agency that investigates the conduct of active judges, an agency attorney said.

Some of the retired jurists who worked with Girardi have died. None still living who were approached by The Times agreed to be interviewed. Trotter, 88, has continued to wield influence. Until recently, he was the sole trustee overseeing the $13.5-billion trust for tens of thousands of victims of wildfires in Paradise and other Northern California communities.

“I believe I performed my assigned tasks in an appropriate and timely manner,” Trotter said in a written response to questions about his relationship with Girardi. In a second statement, he added that he did “not know when, how or why [Girardi] morphed from an apparent capable, ethical lawyer to what he is today.”

“The problem isn’t mass torts or private judging, it is Mr. Girardi,” he wrote.
 

Girardi is not in a position to provide answers. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease last year and is in a court-ordered conservatorship overseen by his younger brother. His court-appointed lawyer, Rudy Cosio, declined to comment.

Once cosseted in a sprawling Pasadena mansion, the 83-year-old Girardi now resides in a Burbank nursing home, dependent on family for financial support. In a court filing, his brother, Robert, wrote that Girardi takes medication for dementia and that his “care needs are such that he needs to be at a skilled nursing facility.” 

The state Supreme Court stripped Girardi of his law license in June, and he and his firm are the subject of ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

The Lockheed litigation cemented Girardi’s reputation as an attorney willing to take on big corporations.

Beginning in the early 1990s, he represented hundreds of Lockheed employees who claimed they had been poisoned at the aerospace giant’s Burbank plant. The litigation was complex, with clusters of workers suing Lockheed and a host of chemical companies over a decade. Records from the litigation show that Girardi wrested more than $128 million from the companies.

 

His [legal] skills were phenomenal,” said Danny Barnes, a Girardi client who started working at Lockheed as a teenager and developed cancer at 27. “The bad part was he didn’t do the money right.”

Though the law firm was called Girardi Keese, it was owned and controlled by Girardi alone. He brought on retired judges affiliated with JAMS, with the assignment of fairly allocating the money among Lockheed workers. To avoid perceived ethical conflicts, it is common for plaintiffs’ lawyers to hire outsiders to decide how much of a lump settlement each client should receive.

One retired judge working on Lockheed was the late Jack Tenner, who had spent 10 years on the L.A. Superior Court bench and was widely admired for his civil rights activism. Tenner, who was white, worked to integrate firehouses and end discriminatory real estate practices. When Black friends, including future L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley and baseball legend Frank Robinson, wanted to buy homes in white neighborhoods with racist deed covenants, Tenner posed as the buyer and transferred ownership once the sale went through.

He was close to Girardi, officiating at his second marriage in 1993, and was one of three JAMS judges, including Trotter, who helped arbitrate Girardi’s most famous case: the $333-million settlement he won in 1996 for residents of the Mojave Desert town of Hinkley. That case inspired the film “Erin Brockovich.” 

After the legal victory, which delivered at least $120 million to lawyers involved, Girardi and a colleague organized a celebratory Mediterranean cruise and invited Tenner, Trotter and other current and former judges. As The Times then reported, most of the jurists eventually repaid Girardi, but questions about the propriety of the trip lingered.

By the time of the cruise, Tenner had worked with Girardi on the Lockheed cases for about five years, and clients and fellow attorneys were growing upset at the lack of transparency and the pace of payouts, according to court records and interviews.

As with many cases Girardi handled, his Lockheed clients were of modest means and education, and as time went on, many were terminally ill from cancer.

People were one foot in the grave and one foot out and trying to get something,” recalled Mildred Davis, whose husband, Willie, was diagnosed with cancer after a career at Lockheed. She suspected that Girardi saw his clients as easy marks who, in their desperation, would accept far less than they were owed. Girardi, she said, would reason, “If I give them $50,000 or $25,000, they are going to be OK, because they never had that kind of money.”

“It upset my husband that [Girardi] felt that he was so dumb, stupid, that he would just be quiet and sit down,” she recalled. Her husband collected some money but not all he believed he was due, she said. He died in 2014.

Tenner remained firmly in Girardi’s corner. In 1998, after some clients filed complaints with the State Bar and others considered lawsuits, the retired judge sent a letter to Lockheed workers in which he wrote that he and another JAMS judge “want to compliment the law firm of Girardi and Keese for its undying efforts on your behalf.” 

The effusive letter did not mollify discontent, and clients continued pressing Girardi to explain what he had done with their money. A partial accounting in 2000, later described in court papers, only deepened their sense of alarm about the settlement and Tenner’s oversight of it.

Millions of dollars had gone to companies and lawyers that had no clear ties to the case and a host of individuals with dubious-sounding names such as K. Ernest Citizen, Giovanni Medici and Lee Marvin, according to court filings. One line item showed $450,000 withdrawn for an “expert witness” fee. It bore the cryptic notation “Confidential (Subject Matter attested to by Judge Tenner).” When pressed for documentation, Girardi refused to provide any. 

Tenner died in 2008. The Times did not find any records in which he explained his actions.
 

The questions about Girardi’s conduct were significant enough that a settlement reached in 2000 with two Lockheed-related chemical companies included constraints on his access to funds. The money was placed in an escrow account, with withdrawals requiring the approval of lawyers for the chemical companies and a mediator.

 

But in early 2001, Tenner helped Girardi circumvent those safeguards, according to court records outlining the previously unreported episode. Tenner signed an “order to transfer funds” drawn up by Girardi on what appeared to be L.A. Superior Court letterhead; it directed Comerica Bank to release $3.4 million to the lawyer. A bank officer sent the money to Girardi, along with $175,000 in interest. Two days later, Tenner signed a second “order” for an additional $3.6 million, but the bank balked, court filings show.

After the missing funds were discovered six months later, Girardi claimed that he had paid that money to clients, but he would not provide copies of the checks.

“Judge Tenner had no authority to issue any such order, the release of the funds was in direct contravention of the settlement agreements,” Jeffrey McIntyre, an attorney for Girardi’s clients, wrote in a 2002 court filing. He asked a Superior Court judge to bar Girardi from using Tenner “to make any purported ‘Orders’ ” going forward. The outcome of that request is unclear.

Tenner continued supporting Girardi in the face of embezzlement claims. In a 2003 letter to Lockheed clients, Tenner wrote, “You should also know that all settlements to the workers and all legal fees have been approved by me.”

He added, “In my many years as a lawyer, my many years as a judge and my many years as a retired judge, I have never seen the legal effort put forth on behalf of clients like the Girardi firm has done.”

To this day, Lockheed clients say they have never received full payment, and Davis, Barnes and others have filed claims in the pending Girardi bankruptcy case for compensation.

The clients were growing more suspicious by the day. 

Girardi in 2011 had reached a settlement ofmore than $17 million with the manufacturer of a menopause drug called Prempro. Some of his 138 clients, all elderly cancer survivors, came to question his handling of the money and hired a former federal prosecutor who in 2014 demanded an accounting.

Girardi knew the cancer survivors were right; he hadn’t paid them everything they were due, evidence that emerged in court later showed. But instead of fully compensating the women or opening his books to their lawyer, he sent them to retired state Supreme Court Justice Edward A. Panelli.

He had earlier tapped Panelli, a JAMS judge, for what his firm told his clients was the important and difficult work of allocating the settlement. Now he and his firm seized on that role to explain why some cancer survivors had received less than expected. In a letter to the women’s attorney, a Girardi Keese employee revealed for the first time that the firm had withheld 6% of the settlement — about $1 million — and claimed it was at the behest of Panelli.

“I am copying Justice Panelli on this letter and I suggest that we meet with Justice Panelli so that you can verify the 6% ‘hold back’ with him,” wrote James O’Callahan, a lawyer at Girardi’s firm. (O’Callahan died in 2019.)

Though California attorneys are required by law to provide an accounting within 10 days of a client’s request, Girardi refused repeated demands, and the cancer survivors ultimately sued to get the financial records.

In response, Girardi turned again to Panelli. Girardi’s firm filed court papers arguing that the lawsuit should not be decided by the assigned federal judge but transferred to a private arbitration overseen by Panelli. Girardi Keese asserted in a court filing that the retired judge had already been formally “appointed” and “has sole discretion to make awards in the underlying ... ligation.” The filing reiterated the claim that it was Panelli, not Girardi, who had decided to retain $1 million.

A federal judge in L.A. called the argument that Panelli should oversee the case “clever” but rejected it in a decision that colorfully described Girardi’s defense as “the Justice-Panelli-made-me-do-it argument.”

At the time, Panelli was working on several cases for Girardi, and the two men had developed a friendship and sometimes socialized. The retired justice seemed unwilling to testify against his friend. He and JAMS fought subpoenas for months, with Panelli arguing in a court declaration that he was too busy to submit to questioning: “With regard to the next eight weeks, with rare exception, I am scheduled to be either engaged in family caretaking obligations, on vacation, or working on previously set matters.”

Finally forced to testify in 2015, Panelli gave up Girardi’s lie.

“Did you authorize Girardi Keese to hold back any portion of the settlement funds from the plaintiffs?” an attorney for the women asked.
 

“No,” Panelli replied.

By then, the cancer survivors had become suspicious that Panelli was paid excessively for the limited work he had performed. JAMS billed Girardi Keese about $78,000 for Panelli’s time, but records from Girardi’s bank, filed in court, showed another payment: a $50,000 check to Panelli personally. Combined, those payments would amount to an hourly rate of more than $5,000.
 

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CALIFORNIA

Tom Girardi’s epic corruption exposes the secretive world of private judges 

A Times investigation drawing on newly revealed law firm records found that Tom Girardi’s practice often relied on private judges, who work in a secretive corner of the legal world.

(Robert Carter / For The Times)

BY HARRIET RYAN, 

MATT HAMILTON

AUG. 4, 2022 UPDATED 6:24 PM PT

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The settlement Tom Girardi reached with a drug company in 2005 was characteristically large and righteous: some $66 million the famed Los Angeles trial attorney won on behalf of patients who said a diabetes medicationcaused liver failure and other maladies. 

At Girardi’s suggestion, a nationally renowned mediator was appointed to ensure proper distribution of the funds. For overseeing the settlement, retired California appellate Justice John K. Trotter Jr. and his private judging firm, JAMS (formerly known as Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services), received a $500,000 cut.

Yet in the years that followed, Girardi diverted money Trotter was hired to safeguard for purposes that were highly questionable and even, in the recent assessment of one federal judge, “a crime.” Girardi sent $750,000 to a jeweler for what Bankruptcy Court records show was the purchase of an enormous pair of diamond earrings for his wife, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Girardi. He dipped into the settlement account again and again for supposed case expenses, sometimes writing multiple seven-figure checks to his law firm in the same week, according to the records.

Tom Girardi in court in 2014.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Ultimately, he took more than $15 million — about 22% of the settlement — for what he described as “costs,” according to a check registry filed in court. Legal experts told The Times the pattern of withdrawals indicated fraud.

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Girardi’s firm collapsed a year and a half ago amid evidence that one of the most respected lawyers in California had stolen from clientsfor decades — the largest legal scandal in state history. 

A Times investigation drawing on newly released internal firm records found that his unethical practice depended on private judges, who occupy a secretive corner of the legal world. Girardi’s reliance on them raises questions about whether there are enough safeguards in this highly confidential and largely unregulated industry to protect the public from predatory attorneys.

READ MORE COVERAGE 

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Unraveling the mystery of Erika Jayne’s $800K diamond earrings — and Tom Girardi’s finances

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Retired judges, including Trotter, played prominent roles in administering large settlements from which Girardi is accused of stealing money. Several worked for Irvine-based JAMS, the world’s largest privatemediation and arbitration company.

Judge John K. Trotter Jr.

(Daily Journal)

Girardi paid private judges at JAMS and elsewhere up to $1,500 an hour to work on mass tort settlements that often involved hundreds or thousands of clients and tens of millions of dollars, according to court records. When pressed about missing funds, he often invoked the jurists’ impressive credentials. The willingness of the former judges to stand by Girardi in court — and sometimes join him at his lavish junkets and boozy parties —enhanced his aura of invincibility.

In some instances examined by The Times, it is not clear that the retired judges knew Girardi was using them as a shield to fend off scrutiny, such as a 2018 letter in which he blamed delays in paying clients on Trotter’s heart problems. But in others, there is evidence the retired judges were aware of misconduct allegations and assisted him anyway.

In 2001, a former judge helped Girardi improperly siphon $3.5 million from a settlement for workers of Lockheed Corp. (which later became Lockheed Martin Corp.) by signing a sham “order” to release the money to him, according to a copy of the document and correspondence from a bank executive filed in court.

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In 2014, a retired state Supreme Court justice then at JAMS was drawn into an attempt to mislead cancer survivors about more than $1 million missing from their settlement. Girardi’s firm, Girardi Keese, told clients that the former justice had instructed the firm to “hold back” the money. The claim was false, but the jurist did not inform the clients or the trial court and fought a subpoena for months before finally being forced to testify under oath. Only then did he disclose that Girardi was lying.

Despite the wide power of private judges in the legal system, no government agency specifically monitors or polices their conduct. Retired jurists often agree to abide by provisions of the Code of Judicial Ethics when working as a referee, special master or similar position, but they do not fall under the purview of the Commission on Judicial Performance, the state agency that investigates the conduct of active judges, an agency attorney said. 

“His [legal] skills were phenomenal. The bad part was he didn’t do the money right.”

— Danny Barnes, a Girardi client who started working at Lockheed as a teenager and developed cancer at 27

Some of the retired jurists who worked with Girardi have died. None still living who were approached by The Times agreed to be interviewed. Trotter, 88, has continued to wield influence. Until recently, he was the sole trustee overseeing the $13.5-billion trust for tens of thousands of victims of wildfires in Paradise and other Northern California communities.

“I believe I performed my assigned tasks in an appropriate and timely manner,” Trotter said in a written response to questions about his relationship with Girardi. In a second statement, he added that he did “not know when, how or why [Girardi] morphed from an apparent capable, ethical lawyer to what he is today.”

“The problem isn’t mass torts or private judging, it is Mr. Girardi,” he wrote.

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Girardi is not in a position to provide answers. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease last year and is in a court-ordered conservatorship overseen by his younger brother. His court-appointed lawyer, Rudy Cosio, declined to comment.

Once cosseted in a sprawling Pasadena mansion, the 83-year-old Girardi now resides in a Burbank nursing home, dependent on family for financial support. In a court filing, his brother, Robert, wrote that Girardi takes medication for dementia and that his “care needs are such that he needs to be at a skilled nursing facility.” 

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The state Supreme Court stripped Girardi of his law license in June, and he and his firm are the subject of ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

The Lockheed litigation cemented Girardi’s reputation as an attorney willing to take on big corporations.

Beginning in the early 1990s, he represented hundreds of Lockheed employees who claimed they had been poisoned at the aerospace giant’s Burbank plant. The litigation was complex, with clusters of workers suing Lockheed and a host of chemical companies over a decade. Records from the litigation show that Girardi wrested more than $128 million from the companies.

Former Lockheed worker Danny Barnes at his home in Los Angeles. Barnes says Girardi stole money from him and other Lockheed workers in the 1990s in a series of suits that resulted in settlements of at least $120 million.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“His [legal] skills were phenomenal,” said Danny Barnes, a Girardi client who started working at Lockheed as a teenager and developed cancer at 27. “The bad part was he didn’t do the money right.”

Though the law firm was called Girardi Keese, it was owned and controlled by Girardi alone. He brought on retired judges affiliated with JAMS, with the assignment of fairly allocating the money among Lockheed workers. To avoid perceived ethical conflicts, it is common for plaintiffs’ lawyers to hire outsiders to decide how much of a lump settlement each client should receive.

One retired judge working on Lockheed was the late Jack Tenner, who had spent 10 years on the L.A. Superior Court bench and was widely admired for his civil rights activism. Tenner, who was white, worked to integrate firehouses and end discriminatory real estate practices. When Black friends, including future L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley and baseball legend Frank Robinson, wanted to buy homes in white neighborhoods with racist deed covenants, Tenner posed as the buyer and transferred ownership once the sale went through.

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He was close to Girardi, officiating at his second marriage in 1993, and was one of three JAMS judges, including Trotter, who helped arbitrate Girardi’s most famous case: the $333-million settlement he won in 1996 for residents of the Mojave Desert town of Hinkley. That case inspired the film “Erin Brockovich.” 

After the legal victory, which delivered at least $120 million to lawyers involved, Girardi and a colleague organized a celebratory Mediterranean cruise and invited Tenner, Trotter and other current and former judges. As The Times then reported, most of the jurists eventually repaid Girardi, but questions about the propriety of the trip lingered.

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By the time of the cruise, Tenner had worked with Girardi on the Lockheed cases for about five years, and clients and fellow attorneys were growing upset at the lack of transparency and the pace of payouts, according to court records and interviews.

As with many cases Girardi handled, his Lockheed clients were of modest means and education, and as time went on, many were terminally ill from cancer.

Mildred Davis at the home she shared with her husband, Willie Davis, who died of cancer in 2014 after working at Lockheed for decades.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Mildred Davis holds a photo of Willie.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“People were one foot in the grave and one foot out and trying to get something,” recalled Mildred Davis, whose husband, Willie, was diagnosed with cancer after a career at Lockheed. She suspected that Girardi saw his clients as easy marks who, in their desperation, would accept far less than they were owed. Girardi, she said, would reason, “If I give them $50,000 or $25,000, they are going to be OK, because they never had that kind of money.”

“It upset my husband that [Girardi] felt that he was so dumb, stupid, that he would just be quiet and sit down,” she recalled. Her husband collected some money but not all he believed he was due, she said. He died in 2014.

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Tenner remained firmly in Girardi’s corner. In 1998, after some clients filed complaints with the State Bar and others considered lawsuits, the retired judge sent a letter to Lockheed workers in which he wrote that he and another JAMS judge “want to compliment the law firm of Girardi and Keese for its undying efforts on your behalf.” 

The effusive letter did not mollify discontent, and clients continued pressing Girardi to explain what he had done with their money. A partial accounting in 2000, later described in court papers, only deepened their sense of alarm about the settlement and Tenner’s oversight of it.

Millions of dollars had gone to companies and lawyers that had no clear ties to the case and a host of individuals with dubious-sounding names such as K. Ernest Citizen, Giovanni Medici and Lee Marvin, according to court filings. One line item showed $450,000 withdrawn for an “expert witness” fee. It bore the cryptic notation “Confidential (Subject Matter attested to by Judge Tenner).” When pressed for documentation, Girardi refused to provide any. 

Tenner died in 2008. The Times did not find any records in which he explained his actions.

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The questions about Girardi’s conduct were significant enough that a settlement reached in 2000 with two Lockheed-related chemical companies included constraints on his access to funds. The money was placed in an escrow account, with withdrawals requiring the approval of lawyers for the chemical companies and a mediator.

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But in early 2001, Tenner helped Girardi circumvent those safeguards, according to court records outlining the previously unreported episode. Tenner signed an “order to transfer funds” drawn up by Girardi on what appeared to be L.A. Superior Court letterhead; it directed Comerica Bank to release $3.4 million to the lawyer. A bank officer sent the money to Girardi, along with $175,000 in interest. Two days later, Tenner signed a second “order” for an additional $3.6 million, but the bank balked, court filings show.

After the missing funds were discovered six months later, Girardi claimed that he had paid that money to clients, but he would not provide copies of the checks.

The late Jack Tenner, a longtime Los Angeles Superior Court judge.

(Patrick Downs / Los Angeles Times)

“Judge Tenner had no authority to issue any such order, the release of the funds was in direct contravention of the settlement agreements,” Jeffrey McIntyre, an attorney for Girardi’s clients, wrote in a 2002 court filing. He asked a Superior Court judge to bar Girardi from using Tenner “to make any purported ‘Orders’ ” going forward. The outcome of that request is unclear.

Tenner continued supporting Girardi in the face of embezzlement claims. In a 2003 letter to Lockheed clients, Tenner wrote, “You should also know that all settlements to the workers and all legal fees have been approved by me.”

He added, “In my many years as a lawyer, my many years as a judge and my many years as a retired judge, I have never seen the legal effort put forth on behalf of clients like the Girardi firm has done.”

To this day, Lockheed clients say they have never received full payment, and Davis, Barnes and others have filed claims in the pending Girardi bankruptcy case for compensation.

The clients were growing more suspicious by the day. 

Girardi in 2011 had reached a settlement ofmore than $17 million with the manufacturer of a menopause drug called Prempro. Some of his 138 clients, all elderly cancer survivors, came to question his handling of the money and hired a former federal prosecutor who in 2014 demanded an accounting.

Girardi knew the cancer survivors were right; he hadn’t paid them everything they were due, evidence that emerged in court later showed. But instead of fully compensating the women or opening his books to their lawyer, he sent them to retired state Supreme Court Justice Edward A. Panelli.

He had earlier tapped Panelli, a JAMS judge, for what his firm told his clients was the important and difficult work of allocating the settlement. Now he and his firm seized on that role to explain why some cancer survivors had received less than expected. In a letter to the women’s attorney, a Girardi Keese employee revealed for the first time that the firm had withheld 6% of the settlement — about $1 million — and claimed it was at the behest of Panelli.

Former California Supreme Court Justice Edward A. Panelli.

(California State Supreme Court )

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“I am copying Justice Panelli on this letter and I suggest that we meet with Justice Panelli so that you can verify the 6% ‘hold back’ with him,” wrote James O’Callahan, a lawyer at Girardi’s firm. (O’Callahan died in 2019.)

Though California attorneys are required by law to provide an accounting within 10 days of a client’s request, Girardi refused repeated demands, and the cancer survivors ultimately sued to get the financial records.

In response, Girardi turned again to Panelli. Girardi’s firm filed court papers arguing that the lawsuit should not be decided by the assigned federal judge but transferred to a private arbitration overseen by Panelli. Girardi Keese asserted in a court filing that the retired judge had already been formally “appointed” and “has sole discretion to make awards in the underlying ... ligation.” The filing reiterated the claim that it was Panelli, not Girardi, who had decided to retain $1 million.

A federal judge in L.A. called the argument that Panelli should oversee the case “clever” but rejected it in a decision that colorfully described Girardi’s defense as “the Justice-Panelli-made-me-do-it argument.”

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What the clients and the federal judge didn’t know at the time was that almost everything Girardi Keese said about Panelli was a lie. Evidence that emerged later established that no court had appointed him in the cancer survivors’ case, and he had never instructed Girardi Keese to hold back any money, let alone $1 million.

The claim that Panelli had vast and sole authority over the settlement was also exaggerated. Panelli had spent “approximately 20 hours” on the case, according to a magistrate judge’s analysis. He met with only two or three of the cancer survivors and had merely “rubber-stamped” payouts already decided by Girardi Keese, according to the cancer survivors’ attorney.

“My attendance at any such event never affected my integrity as a lawyer or my impartiality as a jurist or neutral.”

— Judge Edward A. Panelli

At the time, Panelli was working on several cases for Girardi, and the two men had developed a friendship and sometimes socialized. The retired justice seemed unwilling to testify against his friend. He and JAMS fought subpoenas for months, with Panelli arguing in a court declaration that he was too busy to submit to questioning: “With regard to the next eight weeks, with rare exception, I am scheduled to be either engaged in family caretaking obligations, on vacation, or working on previously set matters.”

Finally forced to testify in 2015, Panelli gave up Girardi’s lie.

“Did you authorize Girardi Keese to hold back any portion of the settlement funds from the plaintiffs?” an attorney for the women asked.

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“No,” Panelli replied.

By then, the cancer survivors had become suspicious that Panelli was paid excessively for the limited work he had performed. JAMS billed Girardi Keese about $78,000 for Panelli’s time, but records from Girardi’s bank, filed in court, showed another payment: a $50,000 check to Panelli personally. Combined, those payments would amount to an hourly rate of more than $5,000.

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Asked under oath to explain the personal check, Panelli replied, “I don’t know.”

“Did you ask them why they paid you directly?” a lawyer for the women pressed.

“No,” Panelli answered, according to testimony excerpted in court papers. The full transcript was confidential.

After the deposition, Panelli did not work with Girardi again. Now retired, Panelli, 90, declined to answer questions submitted in writing, including whether he had reported the lawyer to the State Bar or other authorities. But in a statement, he said he had always complied with ethical guidelines established by JAMS and was not swayed by his socializing with Girardi.

“My attendance at any such event never affected my integrity as a lawyer or my impartiality as a jurist or neutral,” Panelli said.

The cancer survivors eventually obtained law firm records that showed Girardi had removed millions of dollars of client money months before he informed the women that the settlement funds had arrived. A forensic accountant who examined the records found evidence of a “Ponzi scheme” in the settlement account, according to court filings. The case settled on confidential terms in 2016.

::

“We finally got him. This time we got the kahuna,” Girardi crowed in 2006 to the audience of his syndicated weekly radio show, “Champions of Justice.” “One of the finest justices the Court of Appeal has ever had.”

The honored guest was Trotter or, as Girardi informed listeners, “a man of great principle,” who, having left the bench, was “the greatest” of the “great men and women at JAMS.”

The praise was so over the top that Trotter, when finally given a chance to speak, joked, “After an introduction like that, I would imagine that you would do very well in front of me the next time you appear.”

As it happened, Trotter at the time was handling one of Girardi’s cases: an approximately $66-million settlement with the maker of the diabetes drug Rezulin. The terms were confidential, but Trotter’s role had been spelled out in a 2005 court order appointing him “special referee” for the settlement. Under the order, his duties included “review and approval” of payouts to each of the approximately 4,300 clients, as well as the legal fees due Girardi and his co-counsel and any expenses incurred by those firms in preparing the case.

The L.A. Superior Court judge who signed the order had every reason to trust Trotter. A widely admired Orange County plaintiffs’ attorney in the 1970s, Trotter had served for nearly a decade as a judge, first in Superior Court and later on the state appellate bench. He surprised some in the legal community in 1987 by stepping down to join JAMS, a six-judge mediation firm started by a friend.

In the years that followed, Trotter helped transform JAMS into a national and, eventually, international powerhouse with a pivotal role in the judicial system. The company Trotter built now employs more than 400 arbitrators in 29 locations, and many important legal disputes, particularly those involving corporations, play out not in public courtrooms but behind closed doors at JAMS. (The Times has used JAMS to resolve disputes.) Although he retired from JAMS five years ago, Trotter said he remains a shareholder. A spokesperson for JAMS said he stopped being a shareholder in 2020.
 

In the Rezulin settlement, the court made Trotter a gatekeeper for the funds. No money was to leave an escrow account at Comerica Bank except “as directed” by the retired justice, according to a court order. Yet almost all of the settlement — some $65 million — poured into a separate law firm account controlled by Girardi, according to internal Girardi Keese records that became public this year in bankruptcy proceedings.

 

Just over a month after he gained access to the money, Girardi wrote a check on that account for $750,000 to M.M. Jewelers. The family-owned store in downtown L.A. had created several pieces in the $15-million jewelry collection of Erika, his now-estranged wife, and the funds from Rezulin went to purchase a set of diamond stud earrings to replace a pair that had been stolen in 2007 from the couple’s home, according to declarations from Girardi and a store owner that were filed in the bankruptcy proceedings.

“The diamonds were of exquisite quality and very large,” Ared “Mike” Menzilcian recalled in the affidavit.

In a hearing this summer in L.A., the federal judge overseeing the Girardi Keese bankruptcy said the earring purchase “clearly was a crime.”

“This was an embezzlement. This was a theft,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Barry Russell said.

Though there is an ongoing federal investigation into Girardi’s misappropriation of client funds, no charges have been filed. 

Trotter said in a statement that he was unaware that Girardi transferred settlement money to a jewelry store.

Girardi categorized the purchase in internal firm records as a “cost,” meaning a case expense deducted from the amount that went to clients. Put another way, Girardi was charging his clients for his wife’s earrings. And there were other questionable withdrawals billed as “costs.” 

At various points over a 21-month period, Girardi removed money from the account for what he claimed were expenses, according to a check registry filed in Bankruptcy Court. The checks, made out to the firm Girardi solely controlled, were for large sums and, with one exception, were for round numbers such as $4 million, $1 million, $500,000 or $100,000. They eventually totaled $14.3 million.

Experts who reviewed the court order and financial records at the request of The Times said there were numerous red flags.

“You are never going to see a round number like $1 million or $750,000, because the costs are never that way. They come with pennies,” said Charles Silver, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law who specializes in civil practice.

He and others said attorneys usually deduct all or almost all of their expenses at the outset and not as Girardi did, with more than a dozen withdrawals spanning about two years.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said forensic accountant Steve Franklin, who had examined records in the cancer survivors’ litigation. “They are treating it like a slush fund.”

By comparison to the vast sums Girardi took, Trotter approved just $604,500 in cost reimbursements for a Pasadena law firm that partnered with Girardi Keese on the case and did substantial work preparing suits for trial, according to emails filed in Bankruptcy Court.

“How did this go for so long without being discovered?” asked UC Irvine Law School professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow, who has worked as a mediator and written extensively on ethics and mass tort settlements.

She and others said it is incumbent on anyone overseeing a settlement to demand invoices, receipts or other proof that costs are legitimate.

Asked to explain his handling of the Rezulin settlement, Trotter said in a statement that “questions regarding a 17-year-old case are difficult to answer with specificity,” but he “did not in any way authorize nor know about the withdrawals you reference that Mr. Girardi labeled as costs.”

“They appear to be Mr. Girardi’s unlawful use of client funds and had nothing whatsoever to do with actual costs,” Trotter said.

Whatever the oversight failures in Rezulin, the case brought Trotter further acclaim. The National Law Journal cited his work on the settlement in a 2011 article that declared him the country’s “most influential” attorney in alternative dispute resolution.

Trotter and JAMS were also paid handsomely. Their $500,000 fee was not widely known before it was revealed this year in Bankruptcy Court, and its size has raised eyebrows.

During a hearing this summer, an attorney for Erika Girardi, Evan Borges, called the sum “very suspicious,” adding, “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

JAMS confirmed receiving the fee in the Rezulin case but refused to provide invoices substantiating Trotter’s work and declined to make executives available for interviews. The company did not answer questions submitted in writing but said in a statement that its retired judges “are expected to adhere to the ethical standards that they swore to uphold under oath.”

In 2015, the year Erika debuted her lavish lifestyle to viewers of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” her husband was negotiating settlements that would ultimately total $120 million for residents of a Carson neighborhood who claimed they got cancer and other maladies from polluted soil.

At Girardi’s request, Trotter was appointed as special master to divide the funds secured from an oil company and a real estate developer among about 1,500 clients affected by the pollution at Carousel, a housing development north of the Port of L.A.

Years passed, but the settlements — one announced in 2015, another in 2016 — remained partly unpaid, and clients complained. Chris Gutierrez, a public school teacher who had lived in Carousel since childhood, took to dropping by Girardi Keese’s Wilshire Boulevard offices on his way home from work.

“I would be waiting there for like an hour, and they wouldn’t give me the information,” Gutierrez recalled. “I think they were irked I actually showed up.”
 

It seemed inconceivable at that time that Girardi could be delaying payment because he was short on cash — one had only to watch his wife on “Housewives” to see the couple’s opulent home and her designer clothes and personal “glam squad.”

Girardi responded to clients’ ire with a series of letters that pinned the blame for delays on Trotter, bankruptcy filings show. In April 2017, he told them, “We have now satisfied all the requests of the Special Master and, beginning next week, we will be issuing checks.”

Months later, the funds still delayed, Girardi wrote again, emphasizing that Trotter, not his firm, was responsible for the holdup: “Every penny of the settlement was governed by him including the timing in which funds could be distributed.”

More than a year later, Girardi floated a new explanation. Trotter, he wrote, had “a terrible heart condition and he has been unable to handle many of the issues.”

A few days later, Girardi related supposed sickbed comments from Trotter.
 

“I did speak to his wife and asked if we could at least do a partial payment as soon as possible. She discussed the matter with him and told me that he said he gave consent,” Girardi wrote, adding, “Mrs. Trotter thought that his heart condition would settle down and he would be able to have a meeting in about 30 days.”

It is unclear what Trotter’s physical condition was at the time or whether he knew of Girardi’s letters to clients. 

Within months, Trotter had a new job with enormous responsibility: serving as the trustee of the multibillion-dollar trust for Northern California wildfire victims. He declined to answer questions about the purported heart condition or other Girardi correspondence but said in a statement that his duties were limited to deciding the amount of a plaintiff’s award.

“I had no authority or oversight and was not in any way involved with the timeliness or distribution of the money. Nor was I privy to Mr. Girardi’s comments,” he said.

On at least two occasions, Girardi sent partial payments to clients, saying Trotter had authorized him to pay out some but not all of their money, according to letters the clients submitted to Bankruptcy Court. Experts consulted by The Times said attorneys can hold back money earmarked for specific medical costs incurred by clients, but state law requires them to pay funds due to clients “promptly.”

“I would be suspicious right away that there was some misappropriation,” said Kevin Mohr, a professor at Western State College of Law who chaired the State Bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct. “Whatever is undisputed, the client has to be paid.”

The partial payments raised questions about how Trotter was apportioning money. Carousel residents said in interviews that the process seemed random, with little correlation between the settlement award and the time a client had lived in the neighborhood or the injuries claimed.
 

Regina Torrez, a court reporter and cancer survivor who had lived in the neighborhood for decades, said she had hoped Trotter’s involvement would root out fraud and “correctly disburse the award.” But she came away disappointed.

“I don’t think they went through the applications and figured out how people were affected and what injuries they had,” Torrez said.

Some appealed to Trotter, without success. 

“They never responded to me,” said John Parago, who wanted to detail for Trotter how he survived testicular cancer as a teenager. He wondered whether “they were just waiting for people to pass so they wouldn’t have to pay us.”

Carousel client Richard Fair sued in 2017 for an accounting. As he had in the past, Girardi tried to move the suit outside of court into private arbitration with a JAMS judge. In court filings, he contended that Trotter had jurisdiction because of his ongoing work in the settlement.

An L.A Superior Court judge rejected the proposal, but Girardi tried again months later, including in his request a copy of a letter to Trotter marked “Personal & Confidential.”

“We would like you to set a date and time for a hearing in this matter,” he wrote to the retired justice. There is no record in the court file of Trotter responding. The request was denied.

“My sense was that he felt Trotter would rule in his favor. I don’t know why else he would want Trotter in there,” said Fair’s attorney, Peter Dion-Kindem.

Girardi repeatedly refused to turn over financial records showing what he had done with the Carousel money and continued to call upon Trotter to fend off the lawsuit. One of the allegations against Girardi was that he had bungled the $120-million settlements by leaving the funds for years in his firm’s trust account, instead of in an interest-bearing account that could earn money for clients. 

Trotter vouched for Girardi’s handling of the money, writing in a 2019 declaration that “it would have been totally absurd to try to allocate interest to an individual plaintiff.”

Experts consulted by The Times said the retired judge’s reasoning was flawed. State regulations do allow attorneys to keep “nominal” funds in their firm trust accounts for a short period of time, with the interest going to the State Bar for distribution to nonprofits that promote public access to the courts. 

But “there’s no way that millions of dollars held for any period of time fits within this category. No way,” said Jack Londen, a partner at Morrison Foerster who worked on the litigation that upheld the trust fund statute.

Trotter said in a statement that he stood by his original conclusion, but conceded that at the time, he was “unaware of the allegations regarding Mr. Girardi’s conduct.”
 

“Had I known, my opinion would not have changed, but I certainly would not have engaged with him in any way,” Trotter said in the statement. He blamed the State Bar for not catching Girardi but refused to say whether he had ever informed the agency of misconduct by the lawyer.

Fair died last year, before his suit went to trial. Scores of Carousel residents have joined hundreds of other Girardi clients in filing bankruptcy claims to try to recover some of the tens of millions of dollars they say are owed to them. 

“We don’t have a lot of sway,” said Parago, one of the dozens of residents who submitted a claim. “We’re the small people.”

Last month, the Bankruptcy Court seized Erika Girardi’s diamond earrings and said they would be sold, with the proceeds going toward those cheated by Girardi.

Those who have lined up for repayment include JAMS, which last year submitted a claim for an unpaid bill of $9,660.

These people give humankind a bad name… just disgusting trash. I so hope some justice is found.

Edited August 8, 2022 by CrinkleCutCat

[Surrealist]

23 minutes ago, CrinkleCutCat said:

These people give humankind a bad name… just disgusting trash. I so hope some justice is found.

I find it very difficult to believe Erika wasn't aware of certain misdeeds.

I know lawyers can make good money, but as much as Tom Girardi was stealing? I find that difficult to believe.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Surrealist

[RealHousewife]

3 hours ago, Surrealist said:

I find it very difficult to believe Erika wasn't aware of certain misdeeds.

I know lawyers can make good money, but as much as Tom Girardi was stealing? I find that difficult to believe.

This is true. I used to wonder if he was the best lawyer of all time, came from money, made a lot of wise investments, Erika actually made money, etc. Yes lawyers are often rich, but Erika was living like royalty. It really never made sense. 

[Surrealist]

1 hour ago, RealHousewife said:

This is true. I used to wonder if he was the best lawyer of all time, came from money, made a lot of wise investments, Erika actually made money, etc. Yes lawyers are often rich, but Erika was living like royalty. It really never made sense. 

Tom Girardi was making money on the scale of a VC or a tech entrepreneur.

There's just no way any lawyer is earning that kind of money unless they're involved in illegal things.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Surrealist

[NoWhammies]

On 8/8/2022 at 10:49 AM, Surrealist said:

Tom Girardi was making money on the scale of a VC or a tech entrepreneur.

There's just no way any lawyer is earning that kind of money unless they're involved in illegal things.

Successful class action lawsuits can net HUGE attorneys' fees. I just assumed they were living on class action money - I just didn't realize they were stealing from the class beyond their attorney's fees. 

[politichick]

On 8/8/2022 at 8:43 AM, CrinkleCutCat said:

These people give humankind a bad name… just disgusting trash. I so hope some justice is found.

Thanks to whoever pulled this. Been dying to read but there's that blasted paywall!

[goofygirl]

I totally agree politichick!  I would never had an opportunity to read all that had somebody not given up their hardearned $$$ to post this and give us all access to it.  I'm guessing I need to thank whatamiwatching and crinkle cut cat!

Edited August 10, 2022 by goofygirl

[Stats Queen]

1 hour ago, politichick said:

Thanks to whoever pulled this. Been dying to read but there's that blasted paywall!

Same here. Last year, I subscribed for $1 for 6 months and last week my husband said, why are we paying $14 a month for the LA Times 😒

[CrinkleCutCat]

14 hours ago, goofygirl said:

I totally agree politichick!  I would never had an opportunity to read all that had somebody not given up their hardearned $$$ to post this and give us all access to it.  I'm guessing I need to thank whatamiwatching and crinkle cut cat!

I didn’t have anything to do with posting that story…. I’m just a lil’ ol’ grateful reader too!

[Einstein]

I don't know how to link to articles, but there was one today about a house explosion in Indiana and all I could think was thank god Girardi isn't allowed to practice law anymore (dementia aside) otherwise we'd have a bunch more devastated families and widows not receiving settlement money.

[SnarkAttack]

Erika's tag line this year:

"I've got nothing to hide, and nothing to lose, and that makes me dangerous" 

While NOT true, she does say it with conviction, gotta give her that.

[WhatAmIWatching]

18 hours ago, goofygirl said:

I totally agree politichick!  I would never had an opportunity to read all that had somebody not given up their hardearned $$$ to post this and give us all access to it.  I'm guessing I need to thank whatamiwatching and crinkle cut cat!

You're welcome for the stories! I feel it's important that we all get to read about ALL of the deceit and corruption that enabled Tom's massive grift to go on for so long.
 

  It's disturbing that so many people, in such high seats of power, either actively helped him or turned a blind eye. As this goes on, I truly hope that more people will be on the hook instead of solely focusing on Tom and Erika. A lot of people's hands are dirty and need to be held accountable.

 Yes, she is responsible for returning that incredible amount of money that she spent, since most of it went to her company, but she wouldn't have had it to spend if so many other people had morals, ethics, chose not to break laws, refused to engage in the crimes, or spoke up instead of covering for Tom. (How many got kickbacks of the true victim's money?)

I think these two articles floored me even more than the very first one when the grift was initially exposed.

[ivygirl]

I’m watching Inventing Anna, and the (alleged! 😉) parallels are uncanny. Someone decides they deserve more money, access, power, whatever… is due them, and they’ll achieve it by any means necessary. These people hand-choose a “team” that facilitates and enables their wrongdoings—and you say “how did they not know… why did they comply… why did they (what motivated them to) turn a blind eye to all the inconsistencies… and to what degree were they in the dark OR eyes-open complicit?”

Of course, on the moral scale, grifting victims out of their settlements has a worse (and I’ll say evil) effect. But from the perspective of the perpetrators… it’s so similarly black-hearted, cold, and self centered. 

[Hiyo]

Quote

Someone decides they deserve more money, access, power, whatever… is due them, and they’ll achieve it by any means necessary. These people hand-choose a “team” that facilitates and enables their wrongdoings

They should have just it "legally" and become politicians...

[Emmeline]

I read this today and thought I would post it here.  The retired appellate justice that Tom had a 4 year affair with is returning various gifts given to her by Tom.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-19/retired-justice-returns-tom-girardi-gifts?_amp=true

[hoodooznoodooz]

24 minutes ago, Emmeline said:

I read this today and thought I would post it here.  The retired appellate justice that Tom had a 4 year affair with is returning various gifts given to her by Tom.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-19/retired-justice-returns-tom-girardi-gifts?_amp=true

And that is how someone who is not a sociopath would react to this.

[Keywestclubkid]

1 hour ago, Emmeline said:

I read this today and thought I would post it here.  The retired appellate justice that Tom had a 4 year affair with is returning various gifts given to her by Tom.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-19/retired-justice-returns-tom-girardi-gifts?_amp=true

And let’s see what the wife is up to ..

*checks papers* 

“Oh” looks like still trying to claw back earrings that were awarded to go towards paying those widows, orphans, and burn victims her husband ripped off to fund her lifestyle 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Keywestclubkid

[tranquilidade]

The thing that bothers me the most about Erika is that I believe, without any facts to support this-just common sense, that Erika is sitting on top of a good deal of the money owed to the court case clients who were never paid.  I bet Tom planned to cheat his own partners out of the spoils long ago, and teamed up with Erika to pretend he had a wife with extravagant needs as a cover to funnel money out of the law firm.  The two of them overtly bragged about her expenditures on her vanity project and how much she was spending and it seems just a little bit too much to be real.   It's my opinion that  Tom would not waste his fortune on anyone, but I do believe he would hide the money to make sure no one else got it and  he likely partnered with his wife.   There would have been some promises there to seal the deal. 

[OlderThanDirt]

1 hour ago, tranquilidade said:

The thing that bothers me the most about Erika is that I believe, without any facts to support this-just common sense, that Erika is sitting on top of a good deal of the money owed to the court case clients who were never paid.  I bet Tom planned to cheat his own partners out of the spoils long ago, and teamed up with Erika to pretend he had a wife with extravagant needs as a cover to funnel money out of the law firm.  The two of them overtly bragged about her expenditures on her vanity project and how much she was spending and it seems just a little bit too much to be real.   It's my opinion that  Tom would not waste his fortune on anyone, but I do believe he would hide the money to make sure no one else got it and  he likely partnered with his wife.   There would have been some promises there to seal the deal. 

I totally believe there is money hidden somewhere. The filing for divorce was way too sudden not to be calculated and planned out in detail for a long time.

[Keywestclubkid]

2 hours ago, OlderThanDirt said:

I totally believe there is money hidden somewhere. The filing for divorce was way too sudden not to be calculated and planned out in detail for a long time.

that's what puzzles me about this whole thing WOULD Erika be destitute if she lost the earrings? NO Fighting so hard to keep them just makes her look so bad ..

[RealHousewife]

45 minutes ago, Keywestclubkid said:

that's what puzzles me about this whole thing WOULD Erika be destitute if she lost the earrings? NO Fighting so hard to keep them just makes her look so bad ..

Agree. I'd get her side more if she would struggle paying rent or putting food on the table. This is from just last year. She spends $320 on a bust cream alone. 

https://www.glamour.com/story/erika-jayne-skincare-routine

[Emmeline]

13 hours ago, RealHousewife said:

Agree. I'd get her side more if she would struggle paying rent or putting food on the table. This is from just last year. She spends $320 on a bust cream alone. 

https://www.glamour.com/story/erika-jayne-skincare-routine

Glamour must be scraping the bottom of the barrel.   

[Mindthinkr]

45 minutes ago, Emmeline said:

Glamour must be scraping the bottom of the barrel.   

Sincerely I didn’t even know there was a “breast cream” until I read that! 

[RealHousewife]

It’s crazy she lives more lavishly than most Americans, but we’re supposed to feel sorry for her and think it’s cool she doesn’t want to return things purchased with orphans’ and widows’ money. 

[pasdetrois]

Those breast creams have been around forever. I used to see them in the back of my grandmother's ladies magazines (1960s). Don't know about Erika's, but at one point the FDA got after the manufacturers for making false promises (larger and firmer breasts).

[RoseAllDay]

Didn’t see this anywhere, so…

https://news.yahoo.com/prominent-retired-justice-returns-gifts-120029052.html

Snippets:

“A retired California appellate justice who carried on a four-year affair with Tom Girardi has returned numerous gifts from the now-disgraced lawyer to a bankruptcy trustee, an attorney for the former justice said.

Tricia A. Bigelow, who stepped down last year as presiding justice of an appellate court division in Los Angeles, handed over the gifts this week after The Times asked for an explanation of checks Girardi wrote to her in 2017, including one for $5,000 from his law firm’s bank account.”

“He [Bigelow’s attorney] said that during the affair that began in 2012 and ended in September 2016, the justice believed Girardi was “a successful attorney” and had no reason to suspect there was any possibility the gifts derived from misappropriated client funds.

“She’s horrified and appalled that she was the unknowing recipient of tainted gifts,” Jackson said, adding that she ”disgorged all gifts she’s aware of over the last two days.”

———————————————    

There was an uncashed $10,000 check drawn from a joint account. Sounds like this bankruptcy attorney will fight to get every last cent, no matter who’s involved. 

This judge has to be the sidepiece who Erika was alluding to that Christmas down at Kyle’s — the one Tom was keeping in the second house. Apparently Erika didn’t care until “her” money got involved, no matter how “betrayed” and “hurt” she wanted the women to believe.

I do call bullshit that Bigelow had no idea about Tom. You can’t keep stuff like this from spreading like wildfire in the legal community…unless the corruption runs deep there as well, which is also rumored it does. How many others are rushing to cover their asses?

On 8/21/2022 at 8:43 AM, pasdetrois said:

Those breast creams have been around forever. I used to see them in the back of my grandmother's ladies magazines (1960s). Don't know about Erika's, but at one point the FDA got after the manufacturers for making false promises (larger and firmer breasts).

I remember seeing those ads in magazines as a kid (next to the X-ray glasses, LOL) and always wondering just how that worked — put cream on your boobs and they automatically got bigger?

[RealHousewife]

On 8/21/2022 at 7:43 AM, pasdetrois said:

Those breast creams have been around forever. I used to see them in the back of my grandmother's ladies magazines (1960s). Don't know about Erika's, but at one point the FDA got after the manufacturers for making false promises (larger and firmer breasts).

Sounds like the one Erika uses is just to keep her skin looking young. She already has breast implants so don't think she needs help with the larger/firmer.

[pasdetrois]

The contents of the Girardis' Pasadena home is up for auction on Sept. 21. Proceeds go to Tom's bankruptcy. Biggest ticket item is a grand piano valued at $40K. I believe they already found a buyer for the property, originally listed at $16M and sold for $8M I think. They may have taken a loss on the home if they poured millions into renovations over time.

Edited August 23, 2022 by pasdetrois

[RoseAllDay]

27 minutes ago, pasdetrois said:

The contents of the Girardis' Pasadena home is up for auction on Sept. 21. Proceeds go to Tom's bankruptcy. Biggest ticket item is a grand piano valued at $40K. I believe they already found a buyer for the property, originally listed at $16M and sold for $8M I think. They may have taken a loss on the home if they poured millions into renovations over time.

TMZ story, with pics: https://www.tmz.com/2022/08/23/tom-girardi-erika-jayne-estate-auction-expensive-sale/

Love the wood-paneled walls. I will say this, they had some nice stuff. Most of those mausoleums are so tackily decorated that they’re embarrassments. Wasn’t the mansion listed for a ridiculously long time? They had to keep dropping the price? 

What will become of the stuff in Erika’s chapel, if it hasn’t already turned into brimstone?

[Jennifersdc]

3 hours ago, RoseAllDay said:

TMZ story, with pics: https://www.tmz.com/2022/08/23/tom-girardi-erika-jayne-estate-auction-expensive-sale/

Love the wood-paneled walls. I will say this, they had some nice stuff. Most of those mausoleums are so tackily decorated that they’re embarrassments. Wasn’t the mansion listed for a ridiculously long time? They had to keep dropping the price? 

What will become of the stuff in Erika’s chapel, if it hasn’t already turned into brimstone?

I thought I was the only one who liked the wood panel walls. I think the original woodwork in that house is gorgeous. The velvet tufted bathtub….not so much.

[JonnieUniteUs]

7 hours ago, RoseAllDay said:

TMZ story, with pics: https://www.tmz.com/2022/08/23/tom-girardi-erika-jayne-estate-auction-expensive-sale/

Love the wood-paneled walls. I will say this, they had some nice stuff. Most of those mausoleums are so tackily decorated that they’re embarrassments. Wasn’t the mansion listed for a ridiculously long time? They had to keep dropping the price? 

What will become of the stuff in Erika’s chapel, if it hasn’t already turned into brimstone?

In the house tour video her voice seemed so different.  More regular.   Less nasally.🤔

Edited August 24, 2022 by JonnieUniteUs

[Nicmar]

On 8/22/2022 at 11:30 AM, RealHousewife said:

Sounds like the one Erika uses is just to keep her skin looking young. She already has breast implants so don't think she needs help with the larger/firmer.

I  think she is talking about the skin on her chest, because over time it can start looking crepe like , Gold bond puts out a chest cream for crepe chest and it will not cost your $320

[CallmeCray]

On 8/23/2022 at 5:23 PM, JonnieUniteUs said:

In the house tour video her voice seemed so different.  More regular.   Less nasally.🤔

Her obnoxiously fake, nasally voice drives me insane.  That patronizing cackle of hers is worse than nails on a chalkboard.  

Nothing about her is real. She’s all about the projection of an image - an image she hoped to maintain, but alas…it has officially expired.  Stick a fork in Sex Kitten Erika, she’s done.  

[Kdawg82]

Yes Erika did sound more average (less nasally) in the home tour. It's pretty crazy to have the home you once lived in, decorated,  made your own to be picked apart piece-by‐piece to be liquidated. I have no sympathy under the circumstances but still.  It's like breaking down the set after a movie you were in.  None of this was real...just an illusion. 

I'll also never get over what a catfish Erika is. She looks NOTHING like herself without makeup. She actually looks like those women who prey on rich older men. Gives me vibes of LPBW Matt Roloff's new fiance or whatever she is.

[Surrealist]

13 hours ago, Kdawg82 said:

Yes Erika did sound more average (less nasally) in the home tour. It's pretty crazy to have the home you once lived in, decorated,  made your own to be picked apart piece-by‐piece to be liquidated. I have no sympathy under the circumstances but still.  It's like breaking down the set after a movie you were in.  None of this was real...just an illusion. 

I'll also never get over what a catfish Erika is. She looks NOTHING like herself without makeup. She actually looks like those women who prey on rich older men. Gives me vibes of LPBW Matt Roloff's new fiance or whatever she is.

I'm no fan of Erika, but having seen photos of the younger Erika, I thought she was pretty. Not drop dead gorgeous, but attractive in her own way.

[Jextella]

On 8/5/2022 at 2:44 PM, Jel said:

I find it interesting that Diana has been rumoured to be a high falutin' Madam, 

and that Erika has just expressed an interest in becoming a dominatrix.

And now suddenly they are so tight that they are vacationing together.

I've only been watching snippets once in a blue moon, but from what I've seen, they are two peas in a pod.

[RealHousewife]

On 8/24/2022 at 6:48 AM, Nicmar said:

I  think she is talking about the skin on her chest, because over time it can start looking crepe like , Gold bond puts out a chest cream for crepe chest and it will not cost your $320

Yeah I know what she's using it for, just think it's nuts she see herself as such a victim when she's still spending so much. 

[Blondie]

Sorry  it has been posted before 

Edited August 30, 2022 by Blondie
Sorry. Duplicate post.

[realityplease]

50 minutes ago, Blondie said:

Just got a little info from a friend.  Google Erika White/ Erika Giardi   .  This is regarding Bank of America the Giardi's, Umansky's, and Hilton's.  If true, it's no wonder certain ladies are protecting the chitty mess. 

Sorry if it has been posted before or I put this in the wrong category.

Yes - I posted about this on August 19, 2022 in the Sutton thread. (Sorry, but there's so much overlap for some topics - hard to know where to post certain information.)  It addressed my speculation as to why the ladies were ganging up on Sutton.

[Blondie]

Thank you realityplease.  I will delete my post.

[Soapy Goddess]

12 hours ago, Blondie said:

Thank you realityplease.  I will delete my post.

Hi Blondie, I don't think you should have been made to feel that you had to delete your post. Not everyone reads every subject in every topic. I, for one, missed the "original", so I would have appreciated reading all about it. 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Soapy Goddess