Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Pop Star Is In Prison Now - The Tom Girardi / Erika Jayne Story

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Tom Girardi, a once-celebrated Los Angeles trial attorney famous for the Erin Brockovich case, and his wife, reality TV star Erika Jayne of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, became embroiled in a massive legal scandal starting in 2020. Girardi was accused of embezzling millions of dollars in settlement funds from vulnerable clients

This is your fix. I am your host, Stasi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three? Stephen, because he's so evil. I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone base consequences. It's intoxicating.

The writers just know how to trick you. There's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, January 6th, and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies, January 13, on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. So this famous Hollywood lawyer stole millions of dollars. Now the guy's name is Tom and Tom is 60 when this story starts and he's a hot shot attorney living in Los Angeles and Tom he's kind of famous. One of the lawyers in the Aaron Brockovich movie is based off of him or was inspired by him

or something like that. But you get the point. He's well known in the business. But one day in 1999 his whole life changes because he meets this waitress, Erica. And Tom thinks Erica is foin' and they start dating and they fall in love. And even though she's 27 years old and he's 60, they get married. And soon she moves into his multi-million dollar mansion to live with him and all his money. And so now Tom has everything he's ever wanted.

He's a celebrity lawyer with a young wife making millions of dollars. Here's the thing about Tom though. Whatever money he's making from practicing law, it doesn't seem to be enough for him. Because at some point, he starts stealing from his own clients. Like he'll win a big settlement for them, and he'll just steal some of it and keep it for himself. And of course, his clients notice and they get all mad and they sue him. In fact, multiple clients have sued him over the years.

But because he's this hot shot celebrity attorney, he's really good at keeping his record clean. He's apparently friends with all these people in power, like judges, bar officials, politicians, and he knows exactly how to bribe them, like throwing parties and sending gifts and sending money and stuff. And so even though he gets a lot of complaints filed against him, Tom's record with the California State Bar remains perfect, and his reputation stays good,

and he's able to keep getting more and more clients and keep this scam going. But anyway, now that Tom has been the last, scamming his clients and he has all this stolen money, what is he gonna do with it? Well, it turns out his young wife Erica really wants to be a pop star. And jumping into a pop career costs a lot of money. So she needs money, money to record, money for music videos and outfits and productions and stuff. And she's also just the kind of person who's into flashy expensive shit. So in order to fund all of this, Tom feels like he's got to make even more money. And this is where it all gets really diabolical.

Okay, close your eyes and imagine this. Imagine you sue someone and you win a $10 million settlement and your lawyer collects the money for you. And the people you sued, they don't pay it all at once. They pay you over time in installments. And your lawyer starts stealing a portion of the money that you won. Now eventually at some point, you're going to come out. asking him, hey, where's the rest of the money I won? And your lawyer is going to have to pay you something. So where does he get the money to pay you back? Well, he steals it from his other client's winnings. He basically turns it into one big Ponzi scheme. And he's scamming each client to pay off the previous client. And that is exactly what Tom does. And so, how does he

keep getting away with it? Well, he must be paying off the right people, because he comes under investigation for this, but like nothing gets done about it. So he keeps working and he keeps winning massive cases and he keeps stiffing his clients out of millions of dollars. And then he'll like funnel that money that he stole to fund his and Erica's lifestyle. And he's like putting millions and millions into her entertainment company that she now has and into her pop star career, into her music videos, her backup dancers, her travel, her clothes, all of that. In fact, here's a music video she did with flowrider, which I'm sure he got paid really well for. Okay, but then, this whole thing gets even crazier. In 2015, Erica gets cast on a reality TV show, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,

which is a very popular show. And of course, she says yes to this opportunity because she hopes it'll promote her and her music career. And to be fair to Erica, she seems to have the right kind of personality to do well on a show like that. I say important shit. You say too much boring shit. Not only that, but Tom is a rich celebrity lawyer, so sometimes he'll appear on the show too. And the two of them, they like talk about how much her music videos cost to produce. You know that video.

That was an expensive video. It was worth it. And by the way, just to like really flex all their wealth, Erica's big breakout song with their pop music is called It's Expensive to Be Me. Anyway, so now they're on TV and they got this big new spotlight on them and they're getting all this attention. But even so, it's still, seems like no one is able to bust Tom for this Ponzi scheme he's got going on. In fact, in 2018, he wins an award lawyer of the decade for outstanding leadership and his dedication to the legal profession. You can't make this stuff up. Okay, but then, that same year, something pretty crazy happens.

there's a horrible plane crash in the Pacific Ocean, and all 189 people on board, unfortunately, they don't make it. And all the passengers on board, their families, they want to file a big lawsuit against Boeing, the company that made the aircraft. And who do they hire to represent them in this lawsuit? The hottest hot shot celebrity lawyer in town who sometimes appears on reality TV. Tom. And so Tom takes them on his clients, and he negotiates on their behalf.

And they end up getting a settlement of $12.5 million from Boeing. And so Boeing pays the money to Tom and Tom pays the victims what they're owed. But no, he doesn't actually pay the victims what they're owed. He gives them some of the winnings, but he also takes more than $3 million for himself to pay off his credit card bills and stuff like that. He also pays off some of the settlements of previous clients that he scammed. Because remember, this is all one big Ponzi scheme. And so I assume at some point these victims noticed that they didn't get all their money

and they're hitting them up like, why haven't we been paid the full amount, Tom? Where's the rest of our money, Tom? And Tom is probably coming up with bullsho excuses like, oh, it's two more weeks, I promise. But whatever, in reality, Tom doesn't give a damn. Because over the past 40 years of his legal career, he's had over 200 ethics complaints to the state bar of California with Zee. Zero consequences. This dude is basically untouchable. Until.

At some point, the money coming in just isn't catching up with all the money he now owes to people. So his big Ponzi scheme starts to fall apart. And pretty quickly, his firm runs out of money and begins to go into large amounts of debt. I'm talking tens of millions of dollars in debt. And suddenly, boom, his firm has to file bankruptcy. Then, in 2020, as he's slowly going broke, boom, Erica suddenly files for divorce. Shocker. A month later, boom, both Tom and Erica get hit with a giant lawsuit by the relatives of the plane crash victims. Then, boom, Tom gets disbarred from practicing law in California.

And then, of course, bam, he finally gets arrested. And I don't have a mugshot, but here's what he looks like. in real life. And he ultimately gets sentenced to seven years in prison and he loses his lawsuit and has to pay the families of the plane crash $2.3 million. While Erica actually gets no prison time, as she wasn't part of his law firm, so I guess she wasn't directly involved in his Ponzi scheme.