20/20 - The Housewife & The Hustler Part 1

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

ABC News Originals goes inside the real-life legal drama facing the husband of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” cast member Erika Jayne, legal titan Tom Girardi. Originally Aired: 06/14/2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi there, 2020 listeners. It's Deborah Roberts. It was a marriage of luxury and excess for Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne and Powerhouse attorney Tom Girardi. But Girardi's empire came crashing down amid allegations he was stealing from the very clients he swore to protect. In August of 2024, Girardi stood trial and was found guilty of wire fraud and embezzlement. Today, we bring you part one of a two-part series produced by ABC News Studios. Here's The Housewife and the Hustler. Erica Jane, I have seen on this show and I also worked with her on Watch What Happens Live one one or two times um didn't get the best vibe from her but

I know a lot of fake people and it turns out she's just one of them we are back with the Real Housewives star accused with her husband of staging a fake divorce to hide money from the families of plane crash victims. Thomas Girardi is accused of embezzlement. A federal lawsuit says he took money from a settlement fund to maintain their wealthy public image. It had all the elements. It had all the elements. Hollywood, LA, huge cases, along with a real housewife. It was like a movie. Tom Girardi was LA law.

A superstar. Legendary for winning millions of dollars in settlements. Tom is being accused by his own clients, people that hired him, that trusted him, from stealing money. That's the worst thing a lawyer can do. He had private jets. He had a Pasadena mansion. He was spending $40,000 a month on Erica and her glam squad.

They were just blowing money left and right. Tons of money. He would make jokes like, well, nobody would be more expensive than Erica. And then out came her song, I'm Expensive. Ching, it's expensive to be me. Look in the sky, don't come for free. Like, yeah, big surprise.

She said, I have two personalities. I'm whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. She said, I have two personalities. I'm Mrs. Girardi, and I'm Erika Jayne. It's built on I am the third wife. I have the money. I spend the money. This man's going to give me the money because I'm that fantastic, and that's that.

That bothered me a little bit, seeing them live this extravagant lifestyle, and it often made me wonder, like, I wonder if some of that money's mine. Out of the $135,000 settlement, I haven't received anything. Not a penny. This is Tom Girardi. Don't be mad at me. It's not my fault. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you're about to give is a matter not of the law, of me. It's not my fault. Yes. Yes.

I had about $80 million or $50 million in cash. That's all gone. It's like, wow, like, broke? Like, broke, broke? You know, like, but not the client's money, right? I think the biggest question that everybody has is, did she know? Any of the lawsuits, like, did you have a heads up? Is that why you got divorced?

No, I did not. He was taking money, in some cases, it's being alleged, and investing it into Erica's business, into her career. And the allegations are that that money was coming from clients. People love a good scandal. I had to be a double agent for my friend.

I always try to tell people, never underestimate the love of a mother. You want to find something out, I mean, don't call the FBI, call a mom. Girardi said we were his favorite clients, and I definitely never wanted to be his favorite client. But I definitely want to be the client he never forgets. What's up? I don't think he saw it, yeah. Could you imagine living your life without this kind of wealth?

Yeah, I could. I wouldn't want to, but I can. Sure. I could do it. Yeah. What would that look like? Small-er. I don't know.

I don't know. You know, less clothes. You would hate it. I wouldn't. I don't look forward to that, no. You don't have to look forward to it. No, I would not look forward to something like that, no. I reached out to her right in the beginning.

I was like, will you please come on my podcast? Made it clear it was not being filmed, but she arrived with the hair guy, a wardrobe person, and I think a makeup person. And I remember thinking that, wow, that's a $2,000 day to come do my audio-only podcast. Jesus, Marco. She wasn't afraid of her body, her sensuality. There's your girl.

There she is. And I liked that even though she really can't hold a tune, she sang. I'm in a train. Wow. I'll be with you. And she entertained. She was entertaining. I think what intrigued people on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

franchise was that they seemed to be this incredible power couple. She's hot and beautiful and confident and then Tom Girardi is this rock star attorney who fights for the little guy, makes hundreds of millions of dollars. Everybody. Tom Girardi was LA law. He is Mr. Lawyer. A superstar. An icon. A badass trial lawyer.

We're just talking the money that we're really gonna get, and that's 15 million. I'm a man without conviction. If you had a case that had the potential to resolve itself or be resolved for millions and millions of dollars, his was the kind of firm that you wanted to go to. He didn't just represent LA's elite, everybody came out. You come and go. When I became a lawyer over 30 years ago, I knew Tom Girardi was from day one.

Red, gold, and green. Red, gold, and green. And then of course, the case came along, which a lot of people refer to as the Brockovich case, where he sued PG&E. PG&E has requested that we submit the binding arbitration. What's that? Tom Girardi was depicted in the Erin Brockovich movie, but in, you know, real life, he's the actual attorney who closed the deal that at the time was the largest,

you know, settlement of its kind. Good evening and welcome to Prime Time. This is a story you have never heard before. close the deal that at the time was the largest, you know, settlement of its kind. Good evening and welcome to Prime Time. This is a story you have never heard before. A story about family and neighbors, the country's largest public utility and broken trust. We've represented people against Exxon. We've represented people against Dow. This is a million times worse.

A million times worse? That's right. They let these innocent people drink water, which was laced with chromium, day in and day out. It's as bad as it gets. He was famous for that, and people knew that he was famous for that. But he was famous before I became a lawyer. He was famous before many people who are lawyers today were even born.

Many people who are lawyers today were even born. Erica was born in 1971 to a music teacher in Georgia. Her dad left when she was only one years old, and she always wanted to be in the entertainment industry. When she was 18, she moved to New York to try to get a career going. She ended up working at a very famous go-go slash strip club. There's a go-go dancer at Shakers bar in New Jersey. Erica and I worked at this same strip club. Shakers is in Lodi, New Jersey, and it is one of the clubs next to the Badabing Club,

which was on the Sopranos. Bonanima. Bonanima. A lot of girls have been wheeled through there. I was just one of them, and one of many. She was someone who wanted a different life for herself, and then eventually made her way to LA and was a waitress and met a very wealthy, much older man that she connected with.

And I mean, that's kind of the LA dream. They got married very off the cuff at a country club. As the story goes, Tom Girardi asked the judge if the judge would officiate over a marriage ceremony with Erica. They pulled an attorney from the bar as a witness, they got married on the spot, and there was no prenup. Tom had a law firm, Girardi Keese.

The pay was good, but the perks were great. It was just extra. I don't know. It was normal to stay at the Ritz-Carlton. The Christmas party was at the Jonathan Club. Every year you have someone like Leanne Rimes come and sing Christmas carols to your 300 closest friends. Oh, Merry Christmas, all of us and all without a match, over told to every home, take it or go.

There's an annual conference in Las Vegas. He would host a dinner and that was the hottest ticket in town. There was Jay Leno performing, Aaron Brockovich was at the table. I remember one time I was with Tom, and he actually points to a judge across the room and actually goes like this. And this judge ran up to him like a puppy dog. I saw the power that he could wield right then and there. He was the man that people went to

who wanted to get appointed to the bench and become judges. He was the person that people who wanted to run for public office would go and meet and talk to. You have some ties to Erika Jayne. That's right. Right. Well, I mean, indirect ties. Indirect. Political ties. Right.

Because her husband's one of the major donors in California politics. Wow, and does he give to you? He has been extraordinarily generous. Right. Because her husband's one of the major donors in California politics. Wow. And does he give to you? He has been extraordinarily generous. Nice. So she is my favorite real housewife. So Erica Girardi, after being a housewife for years

to Tom Girardi, goes to Tom Girardi and says, I really want to have a music career and be an entertainer. Rock, rock,uffle up my feathers, strip it and shake it better, take a dirty picture. And she asks him, more importantly, to finance it. I think he kind of loved that he had this very sexy, young, burgeoning pop star wife. He put a lot of money into making her Erika Jayne.

We put a lot of money into making her Erika Jayne. I mean, the titles of her songs and stuff are now just like, it's expensive to be me, eh, eh, eh, and I give zero Fs and everything. Nine, not one, zero, zero, zero, die! Erika says there was no return on investment. So Tom Girardi was probably going to have her throw in the towel. But then, all of a sudden, she gets cast on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

I'm an enigma wrapped in a riddle and cash. She was very good casting. She was probably the best since me. Being broke sucks, and being rich is a lot better. They wanted girls that could get in there and entertain, but yet hold their own. The wealth that we get to see Erika Girardi have on the show is almost difficult to wrap your brain around.

She leveled up the whole housewife game when she got on Beverly Hills. I'm gonna give you a little tour of the house. I will take you down to the fun part of the house, which is my closet. Oh, I love this. It's excessive. So come house, which is my closet. Oh, I love this. It's excessive. So come in here. Oh, my gosh.

It's kind of a mess, but you can come in here. Oh, my god. Oh, yeah, it's a mess. It's a mess. It's a mess, but it's a good one. It made me think that I probably should have gotten a law school. I didn't know that you could attain that much wealth by being a trial attorney.

that you could attain that much wealth by being a trial attorney. So this is supposed to be reality, reality television. But is it really a reality? Are we really seeing what's going on? Probably not. Erica, Erica! And this facade starts crumbling when Erika Jayne files for divorce in 2020.

We now start to learn what is really going on there. I Was Prey, the podcast. Listen to the life or death experiences of people who have survived animal attacks, natural disasters, and deadly parasites alike. Hear how a triathlete is attacked by a shark while training and manages to escape after being pulled underwater. And how a hiker in Alaska survives a 1,000-pound moose attack after the animal crushes her limbs. I Was Prey features audio from hit shows like This Came Out of Me, Nature's Deadliest, and Still Alive, and Monsters Inside Me. Listen to I Was Prey wherever audio from hit shows like This Came Out of Me, Nature's Deadliest, and Still Alive, and Monsters Inside Me. Listen to I Was Prey wherever you get your podcasts. There's a huge amount of pressure to maintain the lifestyle on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Did you know? 25,000. If you don't want to look like a loser with a loser event. There's a huge amount of pressure to maintain the lifestyle on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Did you know? 25,000. If you don't want to look like a loser with a loser event, for example, I might be launching a shoe line and I was going to do a $10,000 party. But now that I know it's on TV, I'm like, uh-oh, I better make it a $100,000 party because I don't want to look like my shoe isn't great. So then the number goes up. It's all about keeping up with the Joneses, or in this case, the Leakes, or the Candys, or the Kenyas, or the Teresas, or the Vickys, or the Tamras.

The ladies, the ladies I use loosely, they had a tendency to always and still do flaunt well beyond their means. There's a duality that wealth plays on the show because at one hand it is aspirational or it feels to be aspirational, but at the other hand you see that wealth does not solve really any of these women's problems. There's a specific category of housewives that fall into this echelon of housewives with legal issues.

Real trouble. The charges she's facing are serious. Preparing to serve a 15-month sentence for fraud. You've got sort of the patron saint of this category is Teresa Giudice, who famously, you know, committed wire fraud with her husband and went to jail, and the whole entire thing was sort of filmed on the show. Luann kicked a police officer,

and Jen Shah from Utah is accused of running a telemarketing scheme. Charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, pleading not guilty. And what is so interesting is every time one of these women is caught up in some type of legal situation, the first thing that all of us think is, my God, I hope the cameras are rolling. What's it like to have cameras in your house all the time? It's really bad. Do you ever get used to it?

No. No, oh, my gosh. But nobody gets used to it. I'm always asking this one for advice. I'm always asking this one, what should I do? How do I handle it? What do I do? And that's, you know, that's the truth.

This is my leader. How do you like being on camera for Real Housewives? I prefer to be in a courtroom someplace. There you go. I recall watching a couple episodes, and I just shook my head because there was talk in there about Tom's age. There was talk in there, I believe, about his sexual prowess at his age. And what was he like in the sack?

My wife turned to it one day some months ago, and he was on the show. She said, don't you know him? I decided to give you something to put on your eyes. I was more than a little bit surprised, surprised to see him there. Here's a painting by Marc Chagall. Chagall is one of Tom's favorite painters. Is this it? And his paintings can go for over a million dollars easily. Oh wow, Tom is

beautiful. Probably most appalling was the talk about the fact that they had two airplanes. We have two airplanes in the family so you know the little one is more regional and the little one is more regional and the larger one is cross-country in Europe. And that's, I think, crossing the line in what we do. We represent people who are victimized by big corporations and rich people. And here you're putting that out, that you're super wealthy and that you're basically the man. We sue the super wealthy, and that you're basically the man.

We sue the man. You don't want to be the man. And he's showing people that he's the man. When your money comes from people who had cancer and burns and had great suffering, you know, there's a little bit amount of decorum that you'd think you'd want to have in the way you display the wealth. There's plenty of lawyers that have private jets and beautiful homes, but there's one way to do it

and one way that's basically like a middle finger to people. My name is Joe Ragomez, and I'm a survivor. So the first time I met Tom Girardi, I had just woken up out of my coma. To be honest, there's not a lot I remember about meeting him. I have like a vague memory of just like some guy in my room, like, you know, I'm do a good job for you kiddo. And he made you feel like you could trust him and that he's that guy. Good morning, America. It's Thursday, September 9th. We're gonna start with what's going on in the Western areas. So... We're going to start with what's going on in the Western areas. So, September 9th, 2010 felt like the longest day of my life.

Everything we did that day, like, kind of was a matter of life or death. My son and his girlfriend, Jessica Morales, we we're gonna sit on the couch and watch the game. It was going to be opening day of the NFL season that day. My living room is probably right about here. And then out of nowhere the ground just starts rapidly shaking and it sounds like there's a jet engine right out front that went on for about three seconds and then just boom breaking news tonight San Bruno California a towering fire is just burning out of control police say a gas for about three seconds and then just boom. Breaking news tonight, San Bruno, California. A towering fire is just burning out of control.

Police say a gas line erupted into a massive fireball. Fire just came flowing through the house. I couldn't see anything, I was surrounded by flame. Managed to find the door to my backyard and I remember as I was opening up that door, for a split second I just remember having my life flash in front of me and just thinking like all right this is it 100 certainty I'm dying a scene of total devastation home after home leveled I just remember them putting like an oxygen mask on my face, and within five seconds I

was out. I could remember that day like it was yesterday. I was watching Thursday Night Football, and I received a phone call, went to the hospital, and that's where my interactions with Joe began. He had burns over 80, 90% of his body. It was a little bit more than, oh my God. It was more like, holy. They're like, you got to get out of here. I mean, they looked like they were really working on him.

Joe was like inside an oven. Not only was the external part of his skin burned, but the air he was inhaling was burning his lungs. After we ended up leaving the hospital, me and my husband and his sister went back over to our old neighborhood. We could just see it was just devastated. I was like wondering about, you know, where's Jessica?

And like went around, people need to look for her, find her. And yeah, they ended up finding her a couple days later, I guess, in our neighbor's shed. She must have died in the shed. So, yeah, that... Yeah, that was just devastating. One of the last words we said to each other was, I love you, so just, you know... Yeah, yeah.

My first instinct was to get my car and just go there. When I got there, Kathy was literally, you know, white as a ghost. She came up, and thank God she did, and just handled so much so I could just keep going to the hospital. So Kathy Ruggomes is my childhood best friend, and we met when we were three years old.

We were in the same preschool, and we lived on the same street. When we were around 11 years old, there was this trend of doing this blood sister ritual. Luckily, I still have my copy. We just decided we were going to be bonded forever. We were pregnant at the same time with Joseph and Paul. It's been 48 years of friendship and I can say that we've never said an unkind word to each other. We were getting bombarded with people at the hospital. Everybody was like wanting to be our lawyer and I knew we needed to get a lawyer because I knew Joe was going to need a lot of assistance in the future.

Kathy and her husband at the time wanted to meet with Tom Girardi. And because I had worked with Mazri and Vitido, I called them and asked them if they would set up a meeting. At the time of the explosion, Kim was working as a legal consultant. And that was so crucial for Kathy because the average person doesn't know how to navigate this kind of situation. Who do you find? What kind of situation. Who do

you find? What kind of lawyer do you need? Where do you go? Who do you call? Kim had all of those answers. We went and met with him in this big high-rise office on Montgomery Street in downtown San Francisco and that was the first time I had met Tom in person. Tom Girardi, you know, let me know that everything was going to be okay. And no one had said that to me yet. And it just was comforting. I call Tom a chameleon of words,

meaning that he always knows what to say to a person. We walk in, he's calculating by what we wear, what we say, how we hold our posture. We thought he could win it for us. We were confident about that. We just didn't know how much of a snake he was going to be along the way. When Kathy and her family picked Tom, it felt like such a big relief off of our shoulders, you know? Like, it's Girardi-Keese. Like, they're going to kick their ass. Like, we don't have to worry about any of the legal stuff anymore. This is what he handed me when I met him.

He gave me a resume with all his credentials. And a list of cases at the end. resume with all his credentials. And a thorough list of cases at the end. Yeah. And then magazines with post-its on every page that he's mentioned. When you're going up against PG&E, they're a shark. You're not going to bring the guppy to the shark fight, you know? The fact that Tom had taken on PG&E twice and beat them, not only is his track record with the defendant matter,

but also the fact that when you're a mom on a mission, you want your lawyer to hate the bad guy as much as you do. Really, he took me under his wing. He'd answer any question I had about the legal profession. And he was a master of it, and so I feel like I got this informal internship. How crazy is that, knowing what I know now? So once I actually got to know Tom a little bit, he would take me out to dinner. He was not a very big guy physically.

He was probably like 5'5", maybe at the tallest. But he just exuded confidence and charm. He was always talking about Erica. Oh, she's the sweetest thing. Look at, you like this tie I'm wearing, Joe? She picked it out. Yeah, she's really good at style. And oh, look at this music video that I did for her.

He's fought these big battles before and has gotten large settlements. So I'm like, this seems like the perfect guy for the job. They found out it was a faulty pipe. Basically it was negligence on their part. He never really gave us details about what he was doing in the case, but I still thought he was really, really great. He just seemed like he was trying to be very friendly and letting us know that he was there for us, gave us his cell phone, home phone. We had went to mediation and he made it sound like we were going to go to trial.

And when we walked in, he was like, I settled your case. I was like, oh, okay, you did? It didn't feel like they really had a grasp on what happened that day. And I knew part of it is you're stunned in a situation like that, and you're just not absorbing it. They were just throwing numbers out, like he could get this much a month, he's gonna have payments throughout his life.

The number of the settlement that Tom got, yeah, I was okay with that number. Yeah, to put it simply, yeah, it was a good amount. It was a good amount, and it made me feel comfortable. So it simply, yeah, it was a good amount. It was a good amount and made me feel comfortable. So it made me feel like it would be able to cover any issues in life and then some. After a trial, or it can be just a settlement, your money goes into your trust account. Those funds need to be held in that trust account separate and apart from the law firm. Now, at that point in time, you're entitled to your legal fees, but the rest of the money

belongs to the client. You're not allowed to touch that money. It's not your money. To remove those funds for any reason before it's clear that there's a proper accounting of what the client should get, that is probably one of the most serious offenses by attorneys, certainly in California, and I would think nationwide. Every single lawyer knows that if you dip into the client's account, you will be disbarred. So we said it would take about three months to process getting the money from PG&E and

then asked if we'd like to keep my daughter's money and our money and then my son's big settlement in something that he'd invested in. He suggested that he would take their millions of dollars of settlement funds and put that money into some kind of an account that would guarantee six percent interest and he's supposedly a millionaire i thought he knew how to deal with money obviously he was you know so he made it sound like it was a great thing to do and then after everything was paid he would send send us, you know, our balance. So we were like, okay, you know, that sounds good. And so that's what we did.

So in the very beginning, after it settled in 2013, I mean, it didn't feel like things made sense right away. The amounts of the investment he claimed were not accurate. He never sent any statements of any kind. I mean, it was as simple as me noticing like, okay, I'm expected to get a payment this day, and I didn't get it. So I would call him and, you know, he was hard to get a hold of. He'd be like, oh oh yeah sorry about that these things happen I'll get it to you next week and half the time if the check would come

when he'd say so the second time and other times it wouldn't So I have a store gate to distribute some money to you. That'd be good. On Friday. But I think what I'll do instead, if it's okay with you, because I couldn't get a treatment for money anyway, I would like to talk to you personally. That was the three months after we settled. That was the first time we were supposed to meet with him

where he was supposed to bring our money. That's when he met with us, and then basically offered us the investment deal. I wanna do as good as I can for you. I'm in your corner. I've never believed in a case more, and I've never liked a family more than you guys. I mean that.

Okay, I'll try and reach you over the weekend. Goodbye. When I hear the voicemails, it makes me sick to my stomach because I know that it was just all a lie. Me and Kathy were on the phone every day for hours trying to sort things out, viciously Googling things, and she's asking me my point of view with my perspective, you know, my experience in the legal profession, and we're trying to figure it out. You know, I would be coming home from wherever, and my mom would be, like, buried in paperwork

or talking to Kim on the phone, and she had K'nex on the inside. There were times that we were pretty scared because we didn't know what pushing this would really do. Hello, Ms. Hernandez, this is Tom Girardi. I know you're so frustrated and mad and everything, and I don't blame you. I am too. My name is Josie Hernandez, and I am a former client of Tom Girardi.

In 2010, I seeked out a doctor. I have three kids. And as most women do when they have kids, they have incontinent issues. So I talked to my doctor about it. He said, oh, we have this sling. We're going to, it's so super safe. Implant it, you'll be good. Did the procedure, didn't work, started feeling sick. I went back to

the doctor, he says okay let's put in another one. And things just got worse. So a friend said, you know what, I know somebody who can help you. He's going to fight for you. So I went to the Girardi Keys firm. I signed up with them in 2014. During the time that I was with that firm, my case changed hands various times, which I thought was strange. I thought, okay, why are these attorneys leaving? It was just a big turnover. That was very stressful. By 2019, I was getting really like, okay, no, I'm done. I'm done waiting. You guys have had more than enough time.

What is going on? And I said, you know what? I need you to tell Mr. Girardi that I need to know what's going on with my case. I just can't imagine being a victim and watching any episode of The Real Housewives and watching Erika Jayne go through her extensive shoe collection, her closet, her home,

her private plane, going on trips and flaunting all of this wealth without wondering where it came from.. Joe Rogomez checking in, 10.30. Joe. Good morning, bud. Dr. Cole. What's up, man? Have a seat. In terms of how you feel today what's what's going on today I got restrictions underneath my arm like when I lift up I still got the range of motion but it's just super restrictive and

painful I've had over 30 surgeries just as of, I have like five or six that are on the back burner that I need to get done. And it's just going to be a continued process for the rest of my life, unfortunately. A skin graft in a skin grafted area is probably not your best answer. Also, I'm in quite a lot of fear. I'm going to need a lot of money for the medical life that I have ahead. Whenever I would complain to him about, you know, hey, Tom, you said you were going to pay me on this day, and it's been three weeks.

What's going on? He would call me back and be like, oh, are you mad at me? He would butter me up. You know what, Joe? You're a bitching guy. That's something he would call me back and be like, oh, are you mad at me? He would butter me up. You know what, Joe? You're a bitching guy. That's something he would say a lot. You're a bitching guy, baby.

When I'd ask him for money, he would reference this guy called Justice Pinelli. Justice Pinelli oversees all this. and he gave me the authority to pay out at the end of the year our young man. Edward Pinelli is a former California Supreme Court Justice. He retired and became a private judge. He was the mediator between the Rua Gomez family and PG&E. And you know, Justice Pinelli's only worry that having a lot of money to a young person, he's seen so many

of them go bad, and he's such a wonderful, sweet man and he was so taken by this case and the terrible things that went on that he's very, very protective. And it was always, Justice Pinelli said this, Justice Pinelli said that. That was like his scapegoat guy. And I'm like, well, some of this stuff is for surgeries,

but he would always reference him and make it sound like, I can't give you this money, or I can't give you this amount, because Justice Pinelli said I can. or I can't give you this amount, because Justice Pinelli said I can. Definitely kind of treated me like a child a little bit. Yeah, he was already over 18 when it happened, so, yeah, there's no reason for that.

And the way he makes it sound like Justice Pinelli really cared, Justice Pinelli really wasn't very interested in us at all, you could tell. About a year after the settlement, the Rogomez family realizes that something is going on. They haven't gotten their settlement money, and they're starting to question this more and more. And then something terrible happens. After Paul died, Kathy came down the next day, just like I went to her house when something terrible happened to her family. No one could imagine a lot of it.

And now we're just devastated over her son and dealing with that. It was that moment, basically, where my's death like gave Tom a free pass to start all over again with me and Kathy because now my son's dead and we don't really want to know the truth because the truth is so ugly at this point. And now we're dealing with a whole new set of tragic circumstances. Kathy and I talked about, you know, maybe it's a good idea for me to take it to another attorney so that it doesn't add any more complications because what if, you know, what we think is true or what if we need to make a demand for Joe's money. So I went and met with other lawyers, but people didn't want to do my son's case because

they didn't want to step on Tom Girardi's toes. My back's against the wall too. So we pull the trigger and file the lawsuit with Tom as, you know, my attorney. You know, what choice do we really have? January 2017 would have been the last time that Tom gave Joe money from the money that he was managing for him. It got to a point where he just, you know, the checks disappeared completely. It was pretty conclusive to me in my mind I'm like okay something really sinister is going on here and it's making me really nervous I'm like you know I just bought a house like you know I might have to sell that

now because I can't keep up with the mortgage Kathy and I would joke like because I like who are we gonna call like we can't call the DA. That's Tom's friends. We can't go to the chief of police. That's Tom's friend. You can't go to the California attorney general. That's Tom's friend. You can't go to the California bar. That's Tom's friends. Like, who are we going to call?

Like, Ghostbusters? Who's going to help us? 20 or more years ago, you started hearing rumors about him not paying his co-counselor, his referring lawyers. There were stories about a lot of lawsuits that were filed against him. And of course, I think a lot of people chalk that up to big name, big cases, enemies come out of the woodwork, and maybe that's what was going on.

I plugged Tom Girardi's name into our own archives. You know, every once in a while, something kind of slipped in where there was a client accusing him of doing something wrong or doing something unethical or not giving them all of their money. There were lawsuits, you know, and he knew there were lawsuits referenced on Watch What Happens Live or on blogs or whatnot.

Vegan in Minnesota said, ask Erica if she feels the need to cut back on her glam squad since her husband is being sued for a huge amount of money. We got a lot of questions about this. Anything you want to say about that? Yeah, it's a lawsuit and you can't comment on it. It's a lawsuit and you can't comment on it. I think when she brushed it off and said, I can't discuss it, I think people just were like, okay. They didn't, it was too complicated for anyone to really like want to sink their teeth into and expose it. They took her word for it.

You'd hear like, oh, the dryer doesn't have any more money. You just kind of hear things talking to people, people gossiping, the rumor mill. I remember at some point in time, a judge telling me, you know, Tom doesn't have that much money left. I thought, you gotta be kidding me. This is a guy that we believe's worth a couple hundred million dollars. He's set for life.

I don't want you mad at me. I'm working like a dog to try and get this thing resolved. He sounds like he wouldn't hurt a fly. Like he's Team Josie. Like, even though he's an attorney for all these important people, he's Team Josie, you know? I know it's very frustrating to wait so long for the settlement He's Team Joste, you know? Yeah.

He's unbelievably cruel doing that, knowing he already had my money. I'm sorry don't be mad at me. I'm a good guy by the way. Goodbye. I filed a complaint with the bar. I was also able to get a confirmation. His firm received my money May 2020. The messages that he left me was in August. So he was lying. He was lying. He had my money already. You thought you were going to get maybe as much as $100,000.

I haven't received anything. Not a single thing? Not a single thing. Not a penny. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care.

Did I mention that we care? Election Day 2020. I was at home and I was, you know, just scrolling the internet. I think I was getting ready for work. The news alerts came in so early. Erica Jane and her divorce from estranged husband Tom Girardi amid their ongoing legal troubles. from estranged husband Tom Girardi amid their ongoing legal troubles. Erica Jane, from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, filed for divorce from her husband Tom.

It was breaking news that Erica had filed for divorce from Tom. My phone was flooded with texts from friends. Everyone was like, something crazy is brewing. I was not surprised when Erika Jayne announced that she was divorcing Tom Girardi because there were rumors swirling in Beverly Hills that that was coming.

I can't, but I can tell you that it may or may not have had to do with financial problems. I definitely had heard some rumblings that there were some legal issues, but I had no idea the magnitude. To put it into complete context, you have to understand that before Erica filed for divorce, there were these lenders who were suing Tom very publicly. He had taken out tens of millions of dollars in loans, and he wasn't paying them back properly. Why would Tom, who has won hundreds of millions of dollars

in settlements and verdicts, need to borrow money? The easiest way for people to basically understand this is that, just like any business might go out and secure a loan in order to run or operate their business, lawyers will do the same thing, but sometimes people do it because they're in trouble. And apparently these were the types of loans that were coming due for Girardi before the divorce.

So after a couple of the lenders had filed lawsuits against Tom, I mean, we knew that we had to get out of there. We couldn't wait for Paul's case to be done anymore. We had, Paul is dead. Joe is still alive. So we had to pick Joe. He had to be the priority again because he's the one still here. You know? He had to be the priority again, because he's the one still here.

You know? And so me and Kathy scooped up our stuff and left. And, you know, luckily we found an attorney who could help them and help me. He signed an agreement that he would make a million dollar payment and then like a couple months later it was like a two and a half million dollar payment, but he never got to the second payment. It was very disappointing when you find out your lawyer basically robbed you knowing that he knows everything that I've been through. I just don't get it.

So they dragged him back into court, turned this settlement into an actual judgment that's enforceable, and then they deposed him. We are on the record to begin the deposition of Thomas Girardi in the matter of Joseph Rio Gomez et al. v. Thomas Girardi et al. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you're about to give in the matter not pending will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. You don't see depositions this alarming.

Do you have any personal data? No, I'm not. 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. It's like, wow, like broke? Like, broke, broke? You know, like, but not the client's money, wow, like broke, like broke, broke, you know, like, but not the client's money, right? Was like, oh crap. He admits it.

This is his own words. He had 50 or $80 million, he says, and now, you know, there's nothing left. So the first question that comes to my mind is, where did it go? Where's the money? And that admission that he is broke, he has no money, opens up the door started to escalate. It was a very slow, it's almost like a slow car wreck that you're watching occur.

Tom had a very substantial legal history. We saw one case and then another and then another. We saw this flurry of activity that had been going on very quietly over the last several years. had been going on very quietly over the last several years, that was really where we started, just trying to map out what exactly was happening. It was just very unusual to have all of that happening at once. In December 2020, a Chicago lawyer files a lawsuit against Tom because he hadn't been paid, several of his clients hadn't been paid, and now this whole thing blows up because now it's public.

The Chicago case was groundbreaking in the sense that it finally brought out in the public eye to all the media outlets that Tom Girardi potentially was a fraud. This was the Lion Air crash, the 737 MAX that crashed in Indonesia in 2018. I was involved in that litigation. I represented families as well who had lost loved ones on that crash. We were all in the process of working with Boeing to resolve our cases. Tom Girardi and his firm represented several, specifically widows and orphans,

of these plane crash victims. So on their behalf, he won multimillion dollar settlements. The attorney who filed the Chicago case, Che Edelson, what he said is that, actually, I had been trying for a long time to get the settlement money for my clients, basically chasing Girardi and his staff

for money for months. I think this was the emperor's not wearing any clothes moment, if you will. One of the things that really struck me in my interview with Jay Edelson on my podcast was the thing that made him realize that he had to file the civil litigation against Tom Girardi was Erica Girardi filing for divorce. When she filed for divorce, we actually huddled up as a firm and said, this is bad. Tom probably is in really bad financial trouble. And is it possible, which we did not think could really be true,

but is it possible that he's actually stealing money from clients? He believed that Tom had stolen tens of millions of dollars from creditors, loan companies, and victims so that he could fund his lavish lifestyle that he presented to his colleagues and on the show Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for his wife, Erica Girardi. That's the worst thing a lawyer can do,

is steal money from your clients. And it's worse if it's from the families of widows and orphans. My name is Bias Ramadan. My mom was one of the victims kejadian lion air di Indonesia. Nama dia Asnawati. Ini adalah tragedi, bukan? Dan pakaian rendah juga... ...membuat diri emosi.

Dan hampir tidak ada malam yang mungkin wanita tidak menangis. emotionally draining and there's almost no night that maybe the ladies is not crying. After the settlement, Tom Girardi got the money and it was kind of the same thing that you heard about Kathy Rowe Gomez where it'll be coming soon, don't worry. But of course, it never showed up. We wait and we wait. We keep sending email almost every week. I'm getting chills just thinking about what Tom allegedly did and my sort of initial reaction to that was no way.

I initially was like, no way, not Tom. Tom is Erica's, you know, steadfast, quiet, 81-year-old husband. There's no way he could possibly be doing this. But then the more that I read, especially about the Lion Air victims, I was profoundly upset and disgusted. Judge Thomas Durkin, the former federal prosecutor, was overseeing all of these cases. And Judge Durkin not only found Tom Girardi in contempt, He also froze Tom's bank accounts, and he froze all the bank accounts that Girardi-Keese oversaw.

That immediately paralyzed the firm. It paralyzed Tom financially. Additionally, Judge Durkin referred the case to federal prosecutors, which means that Tom Girardi could be facing time behind bars. I was a federal prosecutor. The last thing you want is a referral to the U.S. Attorney's Office. As an attorney, it is doomsday for you.

It means that you are likely going to be investigated. The Chicago case, right off the bat, they name Erika Jayne in their lawsuit. One of the lenders owed money by Tom Girardi claimed in a lawsuit that Tom had given his wife $20 million in loans from Girardi Keys, and that money went to Erika Jayne's entertainment company, EJ Global LLC.

He was taking money, in some cases, it's being alleged, and investing it into Erika's business, into her career. And the allegations are that that money was coming from clients. But those documents aren't public yet. So while we've heard about this, and it's been repeated in several other lawsuits,

including Edelson's lawsuit, we haven't seen the proof yet. I think the biggest question that everybody has is, is she going to be in trouble? Did she know? I was pretty shocked and pretty saddened by it. And I felt really bad for these victims that thought they'd hit the jackpot with Tom Girardi. We are the victims here. Not him, not Tom, not his wife. It's only me and three of my siblings.

So four of us. And that's it. We just want to know, can we get our money? And when will we get it? Whether a month, maybe two months, I don't even know. Maybe next year, we don't even know it. It's my understanding that Tom Girardi is now under a conservatorship with his brother taking over control of certain aspects of Tom Girardi's life.

His defense attorney suggested that he might have been mentally incompetent, of Tom Girardi's life. His defense attorney suggested that he might have been mentally incompetent, and that kind of hints at the defense we've seen developing over the course of the last few months. There is a psychiatrist in Los Angeles who has diagnosed him with Alzheimer's. I think the whole Alzheimer's diagnosis

will carry some weight on whether he can be criminally charged or not. I can't comment on whether or not he's actually suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's or some form of diminished capacity. I just think that it's strange that that months earlier he was speaking at public events and certainly before the pandemic, I would see him frequently at events. And I didn't have any sense that he was suffering

from any kind of diminished capacity. At the time that Tom Girardi's firm, Girardi Keese, shuts down, they have approximately 9,000 clients, 900 cases. What happens to those clients, those cases? The California State Bar filed charges against Tom Girardi in late March. That is pretty serious. That's the beginning of the disciplinary process that's visible to the public. Day late and a dollar short, right? A day late and a dollar short when the bar comes and takes somebody's license away

after there have been allegations for years, and maybe that kind of action should have taken place sooner. If you were to ask me in 2019 who would come out paying whom in this divorce? I'd probably say that Erica would be getting a lot of money from Tom, but at this point, she's earning more than Tom is, and she probably has more assets than he does. So I don't know how she's going to fare in the litigation

surrounding Tom. She could come out on top, or she could get dragged in and end up in a whole lot of debt. What do I think of Erica now? You know, the whole empowerment of having an alter ego, I thought was cool in the beginning. But now realizing that not only were they spending the money that came from tragedy, but Tom was taking money that didn't belong to him, and they were parading it around for everyone to see. It's outrageous. It doesn't look good. This season on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. With any of the lawsuits, like, did you have a heads up? Is that why you got divorced?

No, I did not. I can't believe that Erica puts herself in positions to be asked those questions, and I most certainly can't believe that she's actually answering them. No one knows the answer but him. Tom had a lot of companies. Girardi Financial is one of them. He had Erica Girardi on that company. Erica's name being on one of

these businesses, it would definitely raise questions as to what she knew, whether she benefited from this, what she's received in that capacity. I think that the trustees are going to be looking really hard at this and they've hired attorneys, they've hired law firms to dig into Erika Girardi specifically. I'm dying to know what she did with all her clothes and her jewelry. On the show, we see these possessions. Oh, that handbag is worth $4,000, and this Cartier ring is worth $170,000,

and, oh, those, I know that that Chanel thing is a classic, and they could go now. where is all this stuff? Erica Jane's defense is that many of these things were gifts to her and thus separate property. I'm not sure that that as a legal proposition wins the day and I guess we'll see. Tom and Erica, they're stuck together in these bankruptcy proceedings. A lot of these debts that they owe in bankruptcy proceedings, they owe together, possibly. It's going to be hard for her to say that she didn't know anything was going on.

It's complicated because under the law, Erica has not been charged with anything. All of her legal issues are sort of tied around Tom Girardi. Erica Jane is still on Housewives and is still having cameras follow her around. If any lawyer is now transcribing every single episode of The Real Housewives, you know, documenting all of the wealth, all of the property, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. People like to see the demise. They want to see that less glammed up face.

They want to see her defend herself. They want to see her roll around on a bed and cry. Erica Jane is a very strong woman. I can tell. And she's a warrior. And she's a bitch. So am I. It's fine to be a bitch.

She knows her mind. She has a lot to say about it. But my advice to her would be shut up, sit down, pay attention to what's going on in your case, and don't worry about TV. I'm an enigma wrapped in a riddle and cash. I've never seen that first episode. I don't think anyone's even sent me a clip of it before. Going from nothing to everything is pretty amazing.

Being broke sucks and being rich is a lot better. Oh, wow. Fun days ahead for Erica. I need therapy now. I'm serious. Girardi said, you know, like, we were his favorite clients, and I definitely never wanted to be his favorite client, you know, but I definitely want to be the client he never forgets because he is not going to do this to anybody else. And he should have never done it to me.

He shouldn't have underestimated me. Moms are just unsung heroes of society. I mean, we know we're the ass-kickers. We just do it because we love our kids. I mean, there's nothing a mom wouldn't do for their child. The scars tighten over time. When I look in the mirror, I see someone who's been through a lot. Surgeries will have to go on for the rest of my life. I've already accepted it. I treat it like a challenge at this point.

I trust that my will could handle anything that gets thrown my way, so... When I look in the mirror, I'm actually not bothered at all. As far as all worried about the scars, should I hide them? I wear them with pride. In 2023, Tom Girardi was charged with four counts of wire fraud. He pled not guilty. In August of 2024, a jury found Girardi guilty on all charges. His sentencing date is currently set for December 6, 2024. Stay tuned next week. We'll continue our deep dive into the Girardi case with part two of The Housewife and the Hustler. Our program was produced by ABC News Studios and is streaming on Hulu. Thanks for listening. Thank you.