LOS ANGELES (CN) — Federal prosecutors in the criminal trial of disgraced attorney Tom Girardi rested their case on Monday — after saving one of their most dramatic pieces of evidence for the end.
In 2019, Bob Finnerty, then a partner at Girardi's firm, Girardi & Keese, sent a letter confronting his boss, still among the most successful and powerful attorneys in California.
"You have created an intolerable working situation wherein we are confronted each day with requests for payment by clients, referring attorneys and vendors," Finnerty wrote in the email which was entered into evidence on Monday.
Previous witnesses have testified about the many excuses Girardi would employ for delaying up his clients' settlement money, including the assertion that a judge or "special master" was holding up the payment for some reason.
"You must know that telling the clients the Special Master is holding up their payments is not correct," Finnerty wrote.
Girardi is charged with four counts of wire fraud, stemming from the accusation that he embezzled more than $15 million of money owed to his clients from settlements or awards.
The defense has argued that Girardi has been suffering from cognitive decline for years, which made him unable to keep track of his firm's complex financial machinery. They've also sought to shift much of the blame for the theft onto Girardi & Keese's chief accountant, Chris Kamon, who is a co-defendant in the case and is set to go on trial next year.
The defense began their case on Monday with a number of witnesses testifying about Girardi's diminishing mental acuity.
Isabela Mancilla, his housekeeper for two decades, said that the once dapper Girardi — and the estranged husband of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Erika Jayne — grew lax about changing his clothes sometime around 2018, and not showering for days. By 2020, she said, through a Spanish language interpreter, "He couldn't remember a lot of things ... He wouldn't remember who people were, people he'd seen frequently."
Amber Ringler, Girardi's friend and travel agent for 24 years, also cited Girardi's sartorial downturn as the first sign that the aging attorney had a problem. Prior to 2010, she said, Girardi was "always elegant, sharp." Starting in the mid-2010s, she said, Girardi shifted to sweaters and khaki pants. Some of the sweaters had stains on them.
Girardi, who now resides in a locked mental health care facility, has worn the same outfit to court nearly every day: a less-than-ideally tailored gray sports jacket, khaki pants, a dress shirt, and sometimes a powder blue sweater.
Ringler recalled telling one of Girardi's doctors, in 2015 or 2016, that the lawyer needed at CAT scan.
Another old friend, attorney Richard Marmaro, recalled seeing Girardi in the downtown LA federal courthouse — the very same building where the trial is happening — and finding Girardi confused, looking for a state courtroom.
His longtime personal secretary, Shirleen Fujimoto, told the court about how his staff would speak to each other, in 2020, about Girardi's chronic forgetfulness — losing keys, misplacing documents and checks.
The team of federal public defenders had tried to get Girardi declared mentally incompetent to stand trial, but U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton rejected that argument, in part because the timing seemed a bit too convenient — that the dementia should present itself just as Girardi & Keese was collapsing under the weight of so many angry creditors.
Now, Girardi's defense rests largely on his mental acuity at the time of his reported thefts. One issue they face is that the first wire fraud count dates back to 2013, when he won a $53 million settlement for his client, Joe Ruigomez. Girardi would spend years lying to the Ruigomez family and shielding the exact terms of the settlement from them.
Prosecutors have also attempted to show just how active Girardi was prior to 2021. While cross examining Ringler, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ali Moghaddas pointed out that Girardi was still traveling at the end of 2019, and still publicly speaking at events in 2020.
"People would write the speeches for him," Ringler said.
Last week, Special Agent Ryan Roberson of the Internal Revenue Service gave an overview of how settlement money going into Girardi's firm's client trust account — which is supposed to act as kind of an escrow account — and how that money was used to pay off older clients, leaving newer clients wondering where their money was. Roberson's case was buttressed by a series of well-designed, colorful infographics.
On Monday, before prosecutors rested their case, Defense attorney Charles Snyder sought to discredit the charts during cross-examination. He pointed out that the data the charts were based on was incomplete; it didn't include loans guaranteed by Girardi personally, or money flowing into the account from companies owned by Girardi.
Whereas the infographics sought to simplify the story, Snyder sought to make it more murky, pointing out that at any given time, the firm had hundreds of active cases and thousands of clients.
Snyder also tried to portray Roberson's exhibits as evidence of "bad accounting practices," but not necessarily theft. One flow chart showed money going from the client trust account to the firm's operating account, and then toward paying a bevy of country clubs — including one called the Plantation Golf Club, in Indio. Snyder pushed back on that: why had the investigator mentioned the country clubs? Was there anything wrong with country clubs? Were they any different than paying for medical bills and groceries?
"Everybody has medical bills and groceries," Roberson responded. "Not everyone goes to country clubs while their clients aren't being paid."
Girardi's lawyers have said that other lawyers were stealing from Girardi's firm.
Roberson didn't deny this; in fact, he said that there is still an active investigation into the the firm, at that at least four Girardi employees — his son-in-law David Lira, Bob Finnerty, Chris Aumais and Keith Griffin, whose law license was suspended by the State Bar — have received "target letters," meaning that they are subjects of that federal investigation.
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