All language subtitles for American Greed s15e24 Lawyers, Lies, and a Housewife.eng

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In this episode of American Greed, he's
a powerhouse litigator who eats big

corporations for lunch.

Super lawyer Tom Girardi is worth $100
million, but says he's a champion of the

little guy.

Tom was.

one of the most respected trial lawyers
in U .S. legal history.

He wins billions in settlements for
clients around the globe.

As a lawyer, sometimes you feel pretty
good.

Girardi makes his fortune in the
courtroom, but his reputation is all

He said, I was in that, I'm the Aaron
Brockowitz lawyer, and that's Doc.

And whether he's taking on Big Pharma or
Major League Baseball, he's a legal

legend. They did the wrong thing.

You've got to make it right.

Girardi's got the mansion, the cars, the
swagger, and the glamorous real

housewife of Beverly Hills.

He said stuff like, forget about it,
baby. That's showmanship.

But clients claim that this showman is
really a swindler who allegedly siphons

tens of millions in settlements to fund
a gilded lifestyle.

It's about a lot of people who have been
victimized.

Once, twice, three times.

And his victims trust American Greed to
tell their stories.

They're ruining lives.

They're ruining thousands of lives.

Until this accused conman counselor's
world starts to crumble.

That's what's been happening the whole
time. The old man went through all the

money. And Girardi's days of making
headlines are far from over.

Is it greed?

Yes. Is it pride?

Absolutely. Is it ego? Is it prestige?

It's all of the above.

But it's not a mistake.

Tom Girardi's illustrious career as a
personal injury attorney has made him an

all -American success story.

The flashy Uber lawyer is a
multimillionaire with a lifestyle most

dream of.

It's on display every week, along with
his beautiful, much younger wife, Erica

Jane, who shares the intimate details of
their marriage on the hit reality

series, The Real Housewives of Beverly
Hills.

But on November 3rd, 2020, the press
catches wind of a bombshell.

Erica's filing for divorce.

This was wife number three. He'd already
had an armload of mistresses.

You know, you keep watching to see what
will happen.

Her soon -to -be ex -husband isn't
nearly as famous as Erica, but Girardi

flamboyant character in his own right,
at least in the courtroom.

In the legal world, it is the case about
Tom Girardi.

In the reality world, it's about Erica
Jane's husband.

Erica says she wants a divorce because,
she contends, Tom cheats and treats her

poorly.

But could there be another reason for
the split?

Tom Girardi's financial life is
crumbling to pieces, as the public will

find out.

17 counts of federal criminal
indictments.

And a torrent of civil lawsuits will
later claim Tom stole client funds.

And Erica knew it. We sued under a
federal statute, RICO, which is the

that you use to go after the mob.

A collapsing marriage and an avalanche
of legal woes are just the beginning of

Tom's troubles.

Teetering on bankruptcy, Girardi risked
losing what, according to Erica, might

matter most to him.

His sole identity as a great lawyer.

In 1964, seven years before his third
wife Erica is even born,

Girardi graduates from Loyola Marymount
Law School in L .A. He establishes a

personal injury law practice and scores
early victories, including a big claim.

Just a few years out of law school, Tom
made a name for himself by being the

first lawyer in California to win a
medical malpractice judgment of more

million.

And he was always an expert at marketing
himself, so he would turn every single

victory into three more.

Including a victory that will make him
famous, the so -called Aaron Brockovich

case.

The Aaron Brockovich case put him on the
map nationally.

Before the world knows her as a
character that wins Julia Roberts an

Best Actress, Erin Brockovich is a real
-world legal clerk.

She works with her boss, attorney Ed
Mastry, to lead a class -action lawsuit

against Pacific Gas and Electric for
releasing cancer -causing chemicals into

groundwater.

It's called a toxic mass torch case.

When Massery runs out of money, he turns
to Tom Girardi for help.

With Girardi on Massery's team, in 1996,
PG &E settles for

$333 million.

The attorneys pocket $133 million in
contingency fees alone.

Aaron Brockfitt was a defining case for
a lot of us, and the movie compelled a

lot of us to go to law school and fight
for the underdog.

Girardi name -dropped his A -list
connection to the movie for decades. In

promotional interviews, he sounds like
he has a starring role.

Shooting that movie, I was on the set
every day. I got to know Julia Roberts.

And to this day, we still have the
chance to say hello now and then.

Except in the film, Tom's not important
enough to score an on -screen knock.

Writers invent a composite they call
Kurt Potter.

Aaron, I was just talking about you.
This is our new partner, Kurt Potter.

be handling Hinkley now.

Oh, I see what you mean about a secret
weapon.

Aaron, it's great to meet you. You've
done a fabulous job.

He immediately latched onto it and said,
that's me.

So even though they never said Tom
Girardi, he said, I was in that. I'm the

Aaron Brockovich lawyer, and that's Doc.

And he realized that that fame got him
an incredible amount of power.

Powerful lawyer, even better
businessman.

In glossy advertising, he's Girardi
Keith's best hype man. And in PR

seizes every opportunity to pitch his
firm's signature calling card.

And we're interested in doing one thing,
and that's helping the little guy.

Giving the guy a voice who's been
harmed, who otherwise wouldn't have a

Girardi thrives on high -profile cases.

that earn him headlines.

He even takes on the L .A. Dodgers in
2014.

Police in Los Angeles arrested a suspect
today in the brutal beating of a San

Francisco Giants fan outside L .A.'s
Dodger Stadium.

Beaten so badly that he remains in a
coma in a San Francisco hospital.

Girardi sues the victim's attackers and
the Dodgers, blaming negligent security

for his client's trauma.

Investigative reporter Brandon Lowry
covers the trial and gets a front row

to the Girardi show.

When I first met Tom, he was in the
middle of the Brian Stowe case. He was

representing the fan against the
Dodgers.

And he does it all with dramatic
panache.

The Dodgers should be paying the medical
expense for this man and his family

right now.

Hey, man, we made a mistake. We're so
sorry. And instead you come in here and

you deny what the law is.

You deny you have any ability to keep
the pledge safe.

People get hurt too bad.

In and outside the courtroom, Lowry is
impressed.

He remembered my name the first time I
told it to him. The next day he came up

to me.

Brandon, great story.

He was just a really nice guy.

Girardi's closing argument is a folksy
masterclass in persuasion. You know

You're going to do the right thing.

I know you will.

Tom Girardi's clients needed a win. He
was the man who was going to solve their

problems. He was their hero.

The jury awards Girardi's clients nearly
$18 million.

I didn't know who he was. I mentioned
this to one of my colleagues, and he was

like, oh, yeah, he's kind of a big deal.
You know, he was one of the Aaron

Brockovich lawyers, and his wife's on
Real Housewives. And I was like, wow,

guy remembered me. I can only imagine
how clients would have felt being

like they really mattered to him.

Six years later, and only days before
Erica Jane files for divorce, Tom will

give his last known on -camera interview
to personal injury attorney Daniel

Faruzan. who lands Girardi as a marquee
guest on his Schmoozin' with Faroozan

podcast.

Hi, my name is Daniel Faroozan, and
welcome to the first episode of the

Schmoozin' with Faroozan podcast.

I went in there thinking to myself, oh,
wonderful, I got a big name for the

first episode of my podcast.

That's all I knew, and I was excited to
listen to him and learn.

Sharing that interview exclusively with
American Greed.

Perusin learns that Girardi's happy to
talk shop about his Dodgers win.

Not too long ago, sir, I was listening
live to your closing in the Bryan Stowe

case. And now here I am sitting across
from you getting to ask you all these

questions. I can't tell you how excited
I am. I got all the accolades.

Girardi won.

Forget about it, baby.

It was that wonderful, sweet client that
those jurors really liked.

He says things like, forget about it,
baby.

And I'm thinking to myself, oh, my God,
I'm in Dick Tracy. What's going on here?

Do we still speak like that? At the
time, I found that charming because no

else has ever spoken to me like that.

But clients say Girardi's charm never
lasts for long.

Coming up, Tom Girardi plays Erica
Jane's Prince Charming.

He had so much power and influence and
money that he could take kind of a

nobody. and make her into a star.

But who's really funding their fairytale
lifestyle?

As a hotshot L .A. lawyer, Tom Girardi
cultivates a big -spending, showy

reputation.

Since the 1980s, he had a mansion in
Pasadena, and he would

entertain politicians, he'd entertain
other lawyers, and this goes back long

before Erica.

By the late 90s, when he meets 27 -year
-old cocktail waitress Erica Jehoi,

they're a match made in Hollywood.

Tom Girardi and Erica are two peas in a
pod. And when they met, it was like a

stereotype ran into a cliche.

They marry in 2000, and the one -time
exotic dancer begins her metamorphosis

Erica Jane, the aspiring singer and
celebrity, bankrolled by her new

years her senior.

Author Kathleen Sharp will spend years
investigating Tom Girardi.

They're very similar, their ambitions
and their public personas.

She was very clever to pitch her star to
him.

But at the same time Erica's star is
rising, Tom Girardi is about to take

another big swing at Pacific Gas and
Electric, the company that made him rich

and famous.

They're behind another devastating
disaster.

And for Girardi, it's a new opportunity
to cash in on tragedy.

On a warm September evening in 2010, Joe
Rugomez is a teenager at home

watching a football game with his
girlfriend.

Suddenly, his entire neighborhood
explodes.

This theory reeling from an explosion so
powerful, it claimed lives and forever

charred the landscape here.

The local gas company, Pacific Gas and
Electric, says a 30 -inch gas line

ruptured.

With burns covering his body, Joe clings
to life.

Amazingly, this is his second appearance
as a victim on American Greed.

His first was in season 14, episode 11,
Burned by Greed.

recounting how he survived the explosion
caused by PG &E's negligence.

Joe's girlfriend, Jessica, perishes,
along with seven others

in San Bruno.

Joe, we don't know if he's going to make
it.

And he's hooked up to a million tubes
and covered in bandages all over.

You can't recognize him.

Kimberly Archie, a close friend of Joe's
mother, knows many lawyers in her work

as a youth sports safety advocate.

Some of them have high praise for Tom
Girardi.

All they ever talked about was Tom
Girardi. Tom Girardi this, we'll take it

Tom. And when it comes to winning
against PG &E, no one has a better

I ran the meeting initially when they
met Tom because this was just a horrific

nightmare for them.

But with a home in ashes and facing a
mountain of medical debt for Joe, the

Gomez family, like so many of Girardi's
clients, are vulnerable, as Joe's sister

Jamie recalls.

We thought, wow, like, he's an amazing
lawyer. He's so well -known. We had no

experience in that world. Like, we were
a middle -class, blue -collar family.

The Rue Gomez family signs on with
Gerardi Keys, and their celebrity L .A.

lawyer fights for them, suing PG &E for
negligent procedures.

I was in a coma for most of that.

And I woke up and they said, this is our
lawyer.

You know, every time I'd talk to him,
he'd whisper me sweet nothings all the

time. You know, talk a good game. It
just seemed logical to trust him.

As their case winds through the court,
Joe's family friend Kimberly starts

working closely with Tom as a litigation
consultant, giving her an up -close

look at Girardi's outrageous spending.

He leases not one, but two private jets
and drives a rotating fleet of luxury

cars.

Tom showers Erica with jewels, including
the piece de resistance, $750 ,000

diamond earrings.

His estimated net worth peaks at $100
million.

Yet, for all his wealth, Archie
notices...

something doesn't quite add up.

I kept thinking, how is he living like a
billionaire on millionaire money? I

never thought he made that kind of money
just on settlement.

She might be right.

She just doesn't know it yet.

Three years into their lawsuit against
PG &E, Tom Girardi has exciting news for

the Rugomez family.

He's won them a multi -million dollar
settlement.

Most is earmarked for Joe, who's already
endured dozens of surgeries and will

require extensive medical care for the
rest of his life.

I didn't have any money at the time.
Everything that me and my family owned

up in smoke, literally.

But Joe's sister, Jamie, says Girardi
isn't explaining the details of their

settlement. We didn't see any paperwork.

And once my mom started pressing him, he
pretty much cut off communication with

her. We had no idea what we were getting
ourselves into.

And when Tom tells the family how much
money they'll receive, instead of

comforted, Jamie recalls feeling judged.

He made me feel like I was being an
ungrateful brat, as if he was expecting

to jump for joy that I got this money,
but I lost everything that was important

to me.

On top of that, Girardi's smarminess
makes her suspicious.

He called everybody, like, oh, baby,
and, like, stuff like that, and he just

tried too hard, and it was phony. He
even called my father baby.

Like, what are you doing?

Coming up.

More families in dire straits depend on
Tom Girardi to be their champion of the

little guy.

We need this money for help. We don't
want this to go by lavishly.

But their lawyer does, and it will lead
to his downfall.

This was not a small criminal operation.

It was large. It was unwieldy. That is
something out of a John Christian novel.

In California, while the Lugomes family
trusts Tom Girardi to deliver millions

in settlement money from the PG &E
explosion lawsuit, halfway across the

country, the Jones family is counting on
him to answer their prayers.

In Linden, Kansas, they're represented
by Tom's firm as...

part of a 2012 lawsuit against the
Johnson & Johnson drug Risperdal.

After taking the drug as a child, Holly
and her husband Michael's son Matthew,

who is autistic, develops gynecomastia,
male swelling of breast tissue.

Insurance won't cover the corrective
operation that he needs.

It broke my heart to see him going
through that.

I couldn't make it better right away.

When Michael dies from lung cancer in
2016, Holly and her children are left

reeling and financially strapped.

Holly suffers brain and physical
injuries, leaving her disabled.

They hope for a miracle settlement for
Matt and a little money to repair their

home, if there's anything left over.

And it's not that we want this money.

It's that a lot of us can't afford this
stuff.

We can't afford mass surgery.

Though Girardi -Keese advertises that we
treat our clients like family, the

Joneses say they receive hardly a word
of correspondence.

We kept getting pushed off and pushed
off and pushed off and pushed off, and

needed to help.

Something just wasn't right in the way
they handled you, the way they treated

you. Finally, after seven years, Girardi
Keys notifies Holly that they've

negotiated a settlement with Risperdal's
manufacturer.

It will allow the Joneses to pay for
Matt's surgery and fix up their home.

amount is modest, just $12 ,000.

And for the Jones family, it's life
-changing. For the Girardis, $12 ,000 is

night out.

Erica's video, Expensive, lays out her
thoughts on money management.

Erica was the perfect mate in that she
loved to spend money just as much as Tom

did, if not more. It was a trophy to him
to say, like, I paid for her music

video. As reality TV royalty, Erica
reportedly tallies more than $14 million

in American Express charges.

But her celebrity seems to pay off for
Tom.

How has the reality television affected
your career? How has it affected the

marketing for your office?

I would be in a hotel in New Orleans.

Twenty people come running up.

Are you Erica's husband?

Erica talked about enlisting a $40 ,000
a month glam squad and goes on eye

-popping spending sprees.

Tom and Erica had money to buy whatever
they wanted. They didn't necessarily

have the most taste.

And I think that's really where the
spirit of greed comes from, people who

have an empty want.

Yet while Tom's living it up with Erica,
his clients are just trying to survive.

He was brilliant at getting the
recovery, getting a payment made by the

defendants in these lawsuits.

He just wasn't very good at it.

allocating those funds where they should
have been paid.

The Rue Gomez family discovers that
firsthand.

They've asked American Greed to keep the
exact amount confidential, but by 2018,

they allege that Girardi pays them only
a small fraction of their multimillion

-dollar settlement, telling Joe he'll
eventually get the rest.

At first, Girardi's rationale sounds
plausible.

You're going to get... Payments every
five years, lump sums every five years,

and then they're going to get annuity
every month.

And I'm like, oh, that makes sense. I'm
young, you know.

Neil Wortlieb is a lawyer and ethics
expert in California.

The client, they don't really have the
access to the information to figure out

what they're entitled to, unless the
lawyer does what they're supposed to do,

which is to tell them precisely what's
been received, account for it basically

to the penny.

and whatever balance is remaining, all
of that is supposed to be allocated to

the clients.

Instead, his clients allege Girardi
evades their pleas to see the actual

paperwork from their settlement. They
claim that he hedges on showing them his

itemized fees, and he's late with
payments.

It's just another excuse, another
excuse.

That's when some red flags started
popping up.

Red flags are just the beginning.

Time would go on, and then finally, if
you press them enough, they'll finally

pay you something.

And then eventually that just stopped.

And back in Kansas, the Jones family
says that Girardi Keys plans to keep

of their tiny $12 ,500 settlement.

They were going to take 40%, and they
were also going to take

$3 ,500 for postage and copies and
filing fees.

I know they did not spend that much.

Holly claims she doesn't get an itemized
bill and pushes back.

Eventually, they settled it for $6 ,000.

Well, they said, okay, we'll pay you in
a month.

Month goes by.

Nothing happened.

We kept calling them and calling them
and calling them, and they would not

respond to us.

Up next, when an Indonesian air disaster
leaves widows and orphans in its wake.

Tom Girardi is on the scene.

Past clients warn, check your pockets.

If you're unlucky enough to touch Tom
Girardi, he probably had your

wallet.

By 2018, Chicago consumer law attorney
Jay Edelson has a chance to collaborate

as a co -counsel with the man who has
helped inspire his career, Tom Girardi.

But Edelson is about to find new truth
in an old saying, never meet your

you'll only disappoint.

He operated like a mob boss.

You know, what you see in The Sopranos,
where they're at the restaurant all day,

and if you want a meeting with them,
you've got to come to the restaurant.

It wasn't like any other attorney I'd
ever met in my life.

And talking about the opioids case they
might work on, in Jay Edelson's opinion,

Tom is shockingly charmless.

Within 30 seconds, you realize he's a
horrible person.

And it was clear he was foolish.

It was just clear from the very
beginning.

He didn't know anything about the case.

He had no strategy other than just to
wield his influence.

It was not a good match.

But against his better judgment, Edelton
will give Girardi a second chance.

None of that growing air disaster
mystery, a Boeing passenger plane, the

company's most recent design, suddenly
plunging into the sea, likely killing

189 people on board. And the question
is, what caused a brand new plane to go

down in clear skies?

When a Boeing 737 MAX owned by Lion Air
crashes in Indonesia, Gerardi

Keese swoops in to represent a dozen
grieving family members, most of them

widows and orphans.

in a lawsuit against Chicago -based
Boeing and others.

A few months later, we got a call from
Tom Girardi's firm saying, we're going

file the case in Chicago and we'd like
you to help out.

When Edelson confirms that Girardi won't
be directly involved with the legwork,

he signs on.

Both firms agree to a 50 -50 fee split.

And in February of 2020,

Girardi and Edelson celebrate a multi
-million dollar settlement for their

clients. Girardi Peace is responsible
for promptly paying the families and

cutting co -counts of their share.

But as a federal judge will later find,
by that September, Edelson's firm hasn't

seen a dime.

We were calling every week, trying to
get more information, and we kept

stalled.

The Rue Gomez family knows the feeling.

After years of runaround, they've
started sleuthing into Girardi's past

discovered a laundry list of complaints
against him they find online.

They tell their friend, Kimberly Archie,
what they found.

As a host of civil lawsuits will later
allege, Tom Girardi seems to have been

regularly transferring client
settlements into his own bank accounts

his obscene spending.

When money comes in as client money, you
have to put it in a separate account.

It is sacrosanct.

Client funds are supposed to be kept in
a trust account that's registered and

regulated by the California State Bar.

Lawyers are also bound to follow
specific payment procedures.

Let's say it's $100 ,000 in the trust
account, and I have a 40 % contingency

on that. So if I get my client $100
,000, I will take the $40 ,000.

Move it out of the trust account, put it
in my operating account before I ever

touch a penny or a nickel of that money.
Why?

While it's in your trust account, it's
not your money.

That belongs to your clients.

Bankruptcy trustees will later claim,
not if you're Tom Girardi.

He took the funds for his own use, his
own personal expenses, for gifts to his

wife, whatever it might have been.

It's called commingling client funds.

The amount of money that was involved
here became very attractive.

Perhaps he saw those funds and thought,
I've earned it, I deserve it, I want it.

Co -mingling funds is the fast track to
getting disbarred, or it was supposed to

be the fast track of getting disbarred.

Instead, the California State Bar
inducts Girardi into the Trial Lawyer

Fame.

On the surface, this is about a
celebrity couple, but...

What it's really about, it's about a lot
of people who have been victimized

once, twice, three times.

The Rue Gomez family knows that feeling
as well.

It really is a slap in the face because
we'll just sit there watching TV and be

like, oh, that's what our money's being
spent on.

Oh, that's what all the other victims'
money is being spent on. Oh, that's what

you're doing with it.

Joe Rue Gomez copes with constant daily
pain.

But Girardi seems untouchable.

Nobody's looking at any of this stuff.

How could he have done it? Nobody knew.

Up next, Girardi has seemingly perfected
hiding dirty little secrets in plain

sight.

Tom Girardi was not a work in progress.
He was already a made man in the most

corrupt way.

In 2019, Tom Girardi is regarded as one
of the most successful litigators in

America. Author Kathleen Sharp has known
better since the 1990s. Tom was an

operator way back when.

Way back in 2000, she writes a searing
expose on the Erin Brockovich case.

Victims from that early PG &E case
accused Tom of the same lying and

embezzlement racket.

that he's been accused of repeating with
scores of complaining clients after

them. Here were these poor people who
had suffered for years and years, and

trusted Girardi to make them, if not
whole again, then at least to get them

money so they could take care of their
medical problems.

And that never really happened.

But there's more.

What I found was sort of a goldmine,
which is the arbitration system.

Voluntary arbitration allows Girardi to
steer some of his famous cases,

including the Erin Brockovich case, into
negotiation instead of a full -blown

trial before a jury.

Private retired judges administer those
cases.

They were earning hundreds of millions
of dollars, paying judges two or three

times what they had earned in the public
sector.

Perhaps surprisingly, this is perfectly
legal.

It wasn't just arbitration. It was him
making friends with some of these

judges. But Tom took it a little bit
farther.

Girardi wines and dines judges in L .A.

He flies them to baseball games in his
Gulfstream jet and even charters

Mediterranean cruises that his judge
pals later called educational seminars.

There would be butlered waiters with
silver trays full of champagne or bikini

-clad ladies frolicking on the sun
-drenched decks.

It gave decadence a bad name.

With arbitration, results are veiled in
secrecy. So Girardi's payouts

escape scrutiny.

And in this good old boy culture,
Girardi's official record with the

bar remains spotless, which is
remarkable because zooming ahead to

2022, the bar will disclose a jaw
-dropping number of complaints and

more than 200, dating all the way back
to the early 1980s.

They taught me a thing or two about not
only how to fleece, your

clients, but how to get away with it.

Girardi quietly settles some of the
cases in a Ponzi -like way, paying off

debts with new money.

Other times, court findings show he
simply runs out the statute of

And Girardi thumbs his nose at a mandate
from the California bar.

There were 37 cases where he was
required to report himself.

The bar trusted him.

to report his own misconduct, and he
just didn't. Basically, if you're

enough to have touched Tom Girardi, he
probably had your wallet.

But by 2019, the Rue Gomez family has
had enough of Tom Girardi. They not only

fire him, they sue him.

The day that Kathy's...

Family sued Tom was the beginning of the
end. That unraveled everything.

The judge issues Erica Jane Girardi two
subpoenas, asking for shared financial

records. That's what led to Erica being
served and finding out

that really Tom has no money.

Though Erica has publicly blamed Tom's
alleged cheating as her reason for

divorcing him, Jay Edelson doesn't buy
it.

It didn't make sense until Erica filed
for divorce.

Then we said, that's what's been
happening all the time. The old man went

through all the money.

Up next.

At that point, he was known to be a
crook. His whole reputation ended like

A lawsuit against Tom Girardi, brought
by his former clients, the Rue Gomez

family, has ruptured his reputation.

And now all hell is breaking loose.

When they brought their suit and started
having success, the lenders started

cutting him off.

He was relying on a lot of outside money
to keep it going. And that stopped

that.

Girardi is dangerously deep in debt,
baby.

as he reveals in a video deposition for
the Rugomez case.

At one point, I had about $80 million or

$50 million in cash.

That's all gone.

I also had a stock portfolio of about
$50 million, and that's all gone.

In Chicago, Jay Edelson is deeply
worried about his clients and is

discover that they've received barely
half of their settlement money.

And we now know the clients were saying
to them, we're screaming, where's our

money?

On December 2nd, 2020.

Jay Edelson files a 30 -page, five
-count civil complaint against Tom,

and other Girardi Peace Associates.

In my view, it is a crime family. That's
what it is. That is how they operate

it. Just two weeks later, on December
14th, Judge Thomas Durkin calls

behavior unconscionable and demands $2
million to be paid to the Lion Air

families. But Tom Girardi...

is broke.

The court issued the judgment.

They froze his assets.

A criminal investigation started.

He then was forced into bankruptcy.

And at that point, he was known to be a
crook. His whole reputation ended like

that, overnight.

Over the next two years, new civil
lawsuits filed by Jay Edelson pour in,

alleging Tom embezzled funds And Erica
helped him hide more than $20 million in

assets through loans to her company, EJ
Global.

We sued under a federal statute, RICO,
which is the statute that you use to go

after the mob. We know that she knew
that the money had run out at a time

she was pretending otherwise.

That's why we claim she was the front
woman of Enterprise.

In a statement to American Greed,
Erica's attorney vocally denies all the

lawsuit's claims against her, writing
that they are disappointed with the

on Erica, which has been used as a
distraction tactic.

She had no knowledge of and did not
participate in any misconduct, and she

turned over her earnings to her husband
and his law firm.

But Erica doesn't turn over those
infamous $750 ,000 earrings from Tom

court order demands she submit them for
auction.

I'm angry. I'm upset.

Here you are flashing all this stuff
off, and that shouldn't be your stuff.

All of that should be gone. All of that
should be money towards the people who

need it.

Auctioneers sell them for $312 ,000.

After months in foreclosure, Tom's
opulent Pasadena mansion sells for $8

million.

The expensive treasures left inside
fetch less than a half a million.

While the Girardi's divorce languishes
in limbo, Tom lives in a memory care

facility, reportedly due to advancing
Alzheimer's disease.

Eighteen months after suspending
Girardi's law license due to his

cognitive decline, the California State
Bar permanently disbars him, later

writing that Girardi caused irreparable
harm to hundreds of his clients.

Tom does not represent all lawyers. The
vast majority of lawyers I know get up

in the morning and do good work on
behalf of their clients.

Tom Girardi's attorney responded to
American Greed with...

No comment.

And though at least one court has found
no evidence that Erica participated in

any wrongdoing, in a suit brought by
Girardi's former colleagues, she and Tom

still face a slew of civil cases,
including Edelson's.

Whatever role she may have played in
this pales in comparison to the roles

played by numerous people whose names we
don't know.

Tom would never have gotten as far as he
did without all of these other people

and enablers, the other attorneys, the
partners.

Every time you pull a thread, it kind of
goes in 15 different directions.

That's the difficulty in this case, that
it really was a sprawling criminal

conspiracy for decades.

Girardi's estimated debt is at least
$100 million, with another $700 million

lawsuit claims against him.

The Jones family has launched a GoFundMe
campaign.

And Holly wonders what justice might
look like for the Girardis.

This may sound harsh, but I want them to
live like we have to live. And I want

justice for all the clients who have
been stolen from.

Jamie Rue Gomez, whose family is still
fighting to secure the rest of Joe's

settlement, has another thought.

I don't care how old he is. No one
should be above the law. He should be in

prison. That's where I want him.

And that could be a possibility.

In November 2022, federal agents in
Baltimore arrest Tom Girardi's former

Chris Kamen, on criminal charges for
wire fraud.

Though they declined to comment, FBI and
IRS agents are reportedly pursuing

investigations against Girardi and his
associates.

Would it be a happy ending to see an
oxygenarian in prison after he's already

harmed everybody? The happiest ending we
could hope for is that people start

looking at the system and changing the
system to prevent this from happening to

other people. There's going to be
another Tom Girardi, and probably doing

right now.

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