Tom Girardi’s legal professionals requested a federal decide to toss his conviction as a result of he wasn’t competent sufficient to know his personal legal trial.
On Aug. 27, a jury convicted Girardi of 4 counts of wire fraud after three weeks of trial. Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles had alleged Girardi, the estranged husband of Erika Jayne of “The Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills,” stole at the very least $15 million from his personal shoppers to assist a lavish way of life. However federal public defenders insisted that Girardi, 85, had dementia.
The movement comes after U.S. District Decide Josephine Staton, of the Central District of California, discovered Girardi competent to face trial. In her Jan. 2 competency order, Staton discovered Girardi was “clearly feigning cognitive impairment” by late 2020 and early 2021, throughout which a lot of the occasions within the authorities’s case happened.
Staton additionally rejected requests from Girardi’s legal professionals to query him privately on the finish of every day of trial to guarantee he understood the proceedings.
“The court docket didn’t meet its ongoing obligations to make sure that Girardi was competent to face trial, and Girardi was not competent,” his legal professionals wrote in Tuesday’s new trial movement.
The movement additionally attaches a sealed declaration that one in every of Girardi’s public defenders, Alejandro Barrientos, tried to file throughout trial, explaining that his consumer was “unable to recollect what occurred from one trial day to the following, and even from one witness to the following.”
Staton had rejected his request to file the declaration.
“It is the logical subsequent step,” Julian André, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who has been following the Girardi trial, referred to as the brand new trial movement. “It is most likely one of the best transfer they’ve, which is to proceed to play the competency card.”
Whether or not it is profitable, he mentioned, is unsure. That is very true provided that Girardi testified in his personal protection at trial. The brand new trial movement cites that testimony, throughout which Girardi did not know the title of his personal lawyer or the legal professionals at Girardi Keese who labored on the consumer issues at subject within the authorities’s case, regardless that he witnessed at the very least one in every of them take the stand.
Julian Andre, McDermott Will & Emery accomplice
However the authorities, and the decide, might simply as properly see elements of Girardi’s testimony as proof of malingering, mentioned André, of McDermott, Will & Emery in Los Angeles.
The movement attaches a declaration from Tanya McAlprin, a caretaker who drove Girardi to and from his assisted dwelling facility and the downtown Los Angeles courthouse throughout every day of trial. On the drive to his trial, she wrote, he would repeatedly ask questions “suggesting that he believed that he was going to court docket as an lawyer to signify a consumer,” equivalent to whether or not anybody from the workplace was on the courthouse, or which division he ought to go to.
“Once in a while, whereas driving Mr. Girardi to court docket, I’d ask him what he had achieved the day prior to this,” she wrote. “He would inform me that he had achieved issues like gone {golfing}, had dinner, and met with shoppers.”
After trial, Girardi would ask her to drive him to his house in Pasadena, California, or to the Jonathan Membership, and, when she did not, he “would grow to be offended” and threaten to fireplace her.
“On at the very least 4 events, he tried to open the automotive door and depart whereas we had been stopped at visitors lights or cease indicators,” she wrote. “Because of this, I often used the kid lock to stop him from opening the automotive whereas I used to be driving.”
By the tip of the day, he forgot he’d spent the day at trial, she wrote. For the reason that responsible verdict, Girardi has not appeared upset, unhappy or emotional in regards to the prospect of going to jail, she wrote.
“He doesn’t seem to have any reminiscence of the jury’s verdict or the trial in any respect,” she claimed.
‘Do It Anyhow’
Throughout trial, Girardi’s legal professionals additionally blamed the previous CFO of his agency, Girardi Keese, for stealing from shoppers to assist a life-style of house reworking tasks and an escort.
That CFO, Christopher Kamon, who was charged in Los Angeles alongside Girardi however confronted a separate legal trial on Jan. 21, pleaded responsible on Tuesday to 2 counts of wire fraud and agreed to pay $3.1 million to victims. He’s anticipated to enter his plea this Friday.
Every morning, the plea settlement states, Girardi would name Kamon to seek out out the balances of Girardi Keese’s financial institution accounts, together with consumer belief accounts. Kamon would inform Girardi when the agency’s working accounts had been low, and Girardi would instruct him to tug cash out of the consumer belief accounts, the plea settlement says.
“Defendant Girardi would determine instances to debit the cash from and instruct defendant Kamon to determine the withdrawal as ‘lawyer charges’ from the instances,” the plea settlement says. “If defendant Girardi instructed defendant Kamon to switch lawyer charges from a case during which charges had already been taken, defendant Kamon would so inform defendant Girardi. Defendant Girardi would instruct defendant Kamon to ‘do it anyhow.’ This was a typical observe at Girardi Keese of which different senior legal professionals within the agency had been conscious.”
The plea settlement pertains to the 2023 indictment towards each Girardi and Kamon, in addition to separate fees introduced in 2022 alleging Kamon stole from Girardi Keese utilizing faux distributors and invoices. That trial was scheduled to start Oct. 22.
U.S. District Decide Josephine Staton. Credit score: Joe Barnet through Wikimedia Commons
Kamon, who has been incarcerated for 2 years, faces a most of 40 years in jail for the 2 counts in his plea deal.
Kamon’s lawyer, Michael Severo, of the Severo Legislation Agency in Pasadena, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Girardi, Kamon and one other defendant, David Lira, a former Girardi Keese accomplice and Girardi’s son-in-law, face separate fees of stealing $3 million from victims of the Lion Air crash in 2018 in Indonesia. Final month, federal prosecutors in Chicago mentioned they won’t pursue the fees towards Girardi, relying on his jail sentence in California.
U.S. District Decide Mary Rowland of the Northern District of Illinois has scheduled a Dec. 19 listening to for an replace.
