California lawyer Tom Girardi has been charged with stealing consumer funds
By David Thomas
(Reuters) – Federal prosecutors in Chicago and Los Angeles filed legal prices on Wednesday in opposition to California lawyer Tom Girardi, accusing him of taking greater than $18 million in funds for his shoppers.
Prosecutors in Los Angeles charged Girardi, 83, with 5 counts of wire fraud for allegedly embezzling $15 million from 2010 to 2020, whereas prosecutors in Chicago charged him with eight counts of wire fraud and 4 counts of contempt of court docket.
Prosecutors in Chicago allege that Girardi misappropriated greater than $3 million in consumer funds owed to the households of victims of the 2018 Boeing 737 MAX Lion Air Flight 610 crash in Indonesia. 189 individuals on board had been killed within the accident.
Within the Los Angeles case, prosecutors allege Girardi took cash from shoppers injured in automobile accidents, together with a household whose baby was paralyzed within the crash.
Christopher Kaman, the previous chief monetary officer of Girardi’s now-defunct regulation agency Girardi Keys, was additionally charged within the Chicago and Los Angeles circumstances.
“They had been committing huge fraud,” U.S. Lawyer Martin Estrada in Los Angeles stated at a information convention Wednesday.
Girardi’s son-in-law, David Lira, who labored on the agency, has additionally been charged by Chicago prosecutors with wire fraud and contempt of court docket.
Girardi’s authorized and private affairs are actually managed by his brother Robert, a dentist. Robert Girardi claims his brother is mentally disabled, and a psychiatrist says he has Alzheimer’s illness.
Robert Girardi didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Wednesday. Lira and Kaman’s attorneys weren’t instantly obtainable on the costs.
Girardi and his spouse, “Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erica Jane Girardi, had been sued in 2020 within the Lion Air case in federal court docket in Chicago by one other regulation agency alleging they misappropriated consumer funds. Erica Jane Girardi denied the claims.
The California Supreme Court docket fired Girardi in June for his alleged conduct within the Lion Air case. Girardi has not formally responded to the state bar’s disciplinary prices.
Kaman was indicted individually in November on wire fraud prices for allegedly embezzling $10 million from the defunct Girardi Keys agency. He pleaded not responsible.
(Reporting by David Thomas; Extra reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Modifying by David Barrio and Jonathan Otis)
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