When Erika Jayne Girardi first joined “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” in 2015, she shocked even her affluent castmates with her ostentatious displays of wealth, including a palatial mansion, private jet, extravagant jewelry, designer outfits styled by her personal “glam squad,” which included a creative director and choreographer for her aspiring career as a pop performer — all bankrolled by her husband, a high-powered personal injury lawyer 33 years her senior.
Now, Tom Girardi, 85, is a defendant in a criminal trial that began in Los Angeles this week, charged by federal prosecutors in March 2022 with embezzling $15 million from vulnerable clients. He is also charged in Chicago with stealing millions more in settlement awards from Boeing to families of a plane crash that killed 189 people. (That case, tentatively scheduled to be tried next year, is on hold until the conclusion of his trial in California.)
In opening statements Tuesday, prosecutors said that Girardi treated settlements he secured from his clients like “a personal piggy bank” that he used to fund, among other things, “the entertainment career of his former wife,” according to a reporter for Law.com.
Girardi gained fame for winning the landmark environmental lawsuit dramatized in the 2020 film “Erin Brockovich,” for which Julia Roberts won an Academy Award. As his wife shot to fame in “RHOBH,” he became better known as her benevolent benefactor in his occasional appearances on the Bravo TV show.
In court on Wednesday, one former client testified about the settlement he received from utility company PG&E. Joseph Ruigomez suffered burns over 90% of his body, and his girlfriend was killed when a gas main exploded outside of his house in 2010. Girardi had told him he’d received $5 million; the actual settlement was $53 million, he said, according to Law.com.
“I trusted Tom,” Ruigomez added.
The Competency Questions
Girardi has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, and the trial comes after a yearslong dispute over his competency. His attorneys, who did not respond to a request for comment from HuffPost, said in court filings that he has dementia and is unable to “properly assist in his defense.” However, a judge ultimately agreed with prosecutors, who argued that although Girardi was diagnosed with a mild cognitive impairment, he was exaggerating his symptoms.
In court documents filed in January and reviewed by HuffPost, the judge cited numerous examples of evidence produced in court that demonstrated Girardi’s competency and “confabulations.” That included his saying that he didn’t remember he had a third wife but then answering a call from Jayne during a clinical examination in which he spoke “cogently” to her, remembered she was leaving for Spain that day to film “RHOBH” and identified her as his “ex.”
Jayne filed for divorce from her husband of 21 years in November 2020, which has not yet been finalized. She has not been charged in connection to her husband’s alleged crimes.
The Lavish Lifestyle
While few “Real Housewives” stars talk openly about money or the source of their wealth (“show, don’t tell” seems to be an unspoken policy), Jayne made it part of her brand.
She joined the show in its sixth season in 2015 with the tagline, “I’m an enigma, wrapped in a riddle — and cash.” In a 2017 music video, she produced for her song “XXpen$ive,” cash rains down on her lingerie-clad body, like feathers from pillowcases stuffed with bills in a “pillow fight” on a bed with two models.
“It’s expensive to be me,” she sings.
Jayne was 27 when she met the twice-divorced Girardi, a frequent customer at the restaurant where she worked as a cocktail server. She launched her pop career after years of being in what she described to People as a “wealthy coma.”
“There are only so many material things you can have before it becomes boring. There are only so many dinners, so many things you can buy. I was complacent. I was in a wealthy coma and I wasn’t looking inward,” she said.
She created her own record label and released her own music videos, hiring producers, directors, choreographers, costume designers, hair stylists and makeup artists for her glitzy, provocative performances, including small live nightclub bookings. Her audacious Erika Jayne stage persona became her public identity, making her castmates gasp and delighting “Housewives” fans.
The Lawsuit
One month after Jayne’s divorce filing, an Illinois class action law firm that was working to recover settlement funds owed to Girardi’s alleged victims — including family members of people killed in the Indonesian plane crash — sued her, her husband, and his law firm and associates, calling the divorce a “sham” to protect their money from their creditors.
(She was later dropped from the lawsuit, which she touted as a victory on “RHOBH.” Proceedings against Girardi and his firm are ongoing.)
Asserting that Girardi and his law firm were “on the verge of financial collapse and locked in a downward spiral of mounting debts and dwindling funds,” plaintiff attorneys Edelson PC alleged that Jayne was “at the heart of” efforts to forestall debtors and said Girardi used settlement proceeds “to fund outrageous lifestyles for himself and his soon-to-be ex-wife.”
“To keep up their celebrity status, Tom and Erika must project a public image of obscene wealth at all times, and at whatever the cost,” Edelson said in the lawsuit, which was viewed by HuffPost.
Edelson also alleged that Jayne used her company, EJ Global, to shield money paid out by Boeing for the victims of the crash.
Jayne’s attorney, Evan Borges, told HuffPost that Girardi and his firm used EJ Global merely as a “book entry” to “code” expenses and that no money was ever paid “to” her company.
“Erika had no role in this process,” Borges said.
“All Erika did was put trust in her attorney then-husband, Tom Girardi, who insisted on exclusively handling all the marital finances, including the finances of EJ Global LLC,” he told HuffPost.
The Shocked Castmates
Hours after the Los Angeles Times published its first explosive exposé about Girardi’s alleged misdealings in December 2020, Jayne’s shocked castmates gathered to discuss the bombshell story, a scene that was aired in a later episode of “RHOBH.” (Kyle Richards famously said then that she didn’t read the whole article because it was “too long.”) The women generally sympathized with Jayne, who loudly proclaimed her innocence, portrayed herself as a victim, and bristled — and was often combative — when she was questioned by her castmates. She repeatedly claimed that pending litigation prevented her from discussing the case.
The Diamond Earrings
But Jayne, a fan favorite on the Bravo reality show that is now filming its 14th season, faced increasing criticism from viewers and her fellow castmates for not showing compassion for the people who were killed, severely injured, or lost loved ones and then were allegedly defrauded by Girardi and his associates after he negotiated settlements for them.
She drew fire for referring to them as “purported” victims in a Season 12 episode filmed in Aspen, which focused on a pair of $750,000 diamond earrings that Girardi had given her. She told her castmates that she refused to relinquish the jewelry despite a bankruptcy trustee finding, which asserted that her husband had purchased them using money from his clients’ trust account.
Her costars, Crystal Minkoff and Garcelle Beauvais, said they would give up the earrings out of compassion for the victims.
“There’s dead people that money was stolen from,” Minkoff said.
Later in the episode, Beauvais told the camera she couldn’t understand Jayne’s insistence on keeping the earrings.
“For two decades, Erika was living this lavish lifestyle off the backs of these victims,” Beauvais said at the time. “Even if Erika is innocent, her refusing to give anything back is beyond me.”
At another point in the episode, when Minkoff again said that she would be focused on the victims, Jayne had a shocking retort.
“I don’t give a fuck about anyone else but me!” Jayne said.
“Why am I showing compassion for people who are dogging me for something that I didn’t even do?” she added.
When a court overturned a bankruptcy judge’s order to relinquish the earrings, Jayne trumpeted her victory on the Season 13 cast trip to Spain — after that phone call with her husband mentioned in his competency hearing. She was disappointed that her friends weren’t celebrating with her.
Beauvais commented in a confessional that she still wished Jayne would relinquish the earrings.
“Even though you’re not guilty, you’re giving back to the victims. You need good karma,” Beauvais said.
‘The Housewife And The Hustler 2: The Reckoning’
Earlier this year, Jayne expressed her compassion publicly for the victims of the plane crash and other tragedies. She also met with several victims, which was filmed for this February’s “Reckoning,” the sequel to the 2021 ABC News documentary, “The Housewife And The Hustler.”
Arriving in an unusually (for her) muted outfit — slacks, a print blouse and plain heels — Jayne shared a table with three women allegedly defrauded by her husband. She offered an apology — of sorts.
“I’m sorry that my husband did this to everybody. And I mean that as heartfelt as I can. But a lot of it is new to me, too. … Nobody was interested in my side of the story. They were interested in blaming me,” she told the women.
“Certainly, I didn’t know, but on behalf of everyone else, I’m very sorry,” she said.
The Jury Questionnaire
So much of Jayne and her husband’s legal wrangling played out on “RHOBH” that prospective jurors in Girardi’s trial were asked about the show in a questionnaire they filled out ahead of jury selection. The questions HuffPost reviewed included: “Have you watched shows or other media on the Bravo network?”; “Have you watched/do you watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills shows on the Bravo network?” and “Have you seen, heard or read any other form of media… related to The Real Housewives or The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?”
Bravo did not respond to a request for comment by HuffPost. Testimony in the trial is expected to continue on Friday.
