Tom Girardi’s own testimony during his criminal trial showed he was mentally competent because it was consistent with the “main defense argument” that it was the former Girardi Keese CFO, Christopher Kamon, who stole millions of dollars from the Los Angeles firm.
That’s according to federal prosecutors in Los Angeles who, in a Tuesday filing, disagreed that Girardi, 85, should have his Aug. 27 conviction tossed out because he was not mentally competent enough to understand his own trial. Girardi’s lawyers, who are all federal public defenders, argued last month that their client, who is the estranged husband of Erika Jayne, a star on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” doesn’t even remember the verdict, which found him guilty of four counts of wire fraud.
“On direct examination, defendant testified consistent with the main defense argument that co-defendant Christopher Kamon was responsible for the fraud scheme at Girardi Keese due to his oversight of the firm’s accounting department,” prosecutors wrote. “When pressed on cross-examination, defendant denied stealing client money and attempted to explain the non-payment of client settlement funds by citing various reasons including clients’ drug problems, liens, and other holdbacks.”
Girardi’s motion for a new trial, they argued, simply rehashed claims that U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton, of the Central District of California, rejected in her Jan. 2 competency order. Staton found that Girardi was “clearly feigning cognitive impairment” by late 2020 and early 2021, during which many of the events in the government’s case took place.
“Despite repeated assertions that he would not seek to reopen competency proceedings, defendants’ motion for a new trial is a clear attempt to do just that,” prosecutors wrote.
In addition to his testimony, Girardi’s “audible, public interactions with his counsel” argue against a motion for new trial, prosecutors added.
“For example,” they wrote, “in a voice that could be overheard at government’s counsel table, defendant on multiple occasions during trial asked his counsel when it was his turn to testify and also told his counsel that it was his ‘ass on the line.'”
“These comments show that defendant was acutely aware of the proceedings against him and eagerly awaited his opportunity to assist in his defense by testifying,” they wrote.
‘Well-Worn Territory’
Girardi’s new trial motion attaches a sealed declaration from one of his public defenders, Alejandro Barrientos, explaining that his client was “unable to remember what happened from one trial day to the next, or even from one witness to the next.”
Also attached was a declaration from a caretaker who drove Girardi to and from his assisted living facility and the downtown Los Angeles courthouse during each day of trial. On the drive there, she wrote, he would repeatedly ask questions, “suggesting that he believed that he was going to court as an attorney to represent a client,” such as whether anyone from the office was at the courthouse, or which department he should go to.
Both issues are “well-worn territory in the court’s assessment of defendant’s mental abilities,” prosecutors wrote in Tuesday’s filing.
“The motion merely recycles the same essential arguments defendant made during the competency proceedings, namely that his memory issues and personal hygiene problems render him unable to understand the proceedings or meaningfully assist in his defense,” they wrote.
Girardi’s decision to testify in his own defense showed that he knew what was going on during the trial, they wrote. Although he could not recall the name of his own attorney, or many of the clients who had testified in court, Girardi cast blame on Kamon, who faced a separate criminal trial. On Oct. 11, Kamon, 51, who has been incarcerated in federal prison for two years, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and agreed to pay $3.1 million to victims.
Girardi, Kamon and another defendant, David Lira, a former Girardi Keese partner and Girardi’s son-in-law, face separate charges of stealing $3 million from victims of the Lion Air crash in 2018 in Indonesia. But federal prosecutors in Chicago have said they might not pursue the charges against Girardi, depending on his prison sentence in California.
U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland of the Northern District of Illinois has scheduled a Dec. 19 hearing for an update.