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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts. This is the second episode of a two-part series. I don't care how much Real Housewives you've watched, you're going to be lost if you don't go back and listen to part one. ♪
Sachi, if you had any type of political influence, how would you use that to your advantage? I mean, I feel like you know I would only use it for evil. Well, I actually don't know how this would work, but I think the only, like...
kind of illegal thing I would want would be an unlimited tap card for when I take the bus or subway, just so I never have to think about it. Are you a turnstile jumper? Well, if I could, I would, but we can't jump those in Toronto. It's like those doors. Oh, yeah, they're like bricks. I forgot. I could imagine you suddenly becoming very spry and jumping over a turnstile and surprising me. Well, as we discussed last episode, Tom Girardi started his career off emulating his do-gooder hero, Perry Mason. Perry Mason.
But as he gained success, he also gained a lot of power and political influence. Power and influence that he didn't exactly use for good. It's 2018, and a lawyer named Jay Edelson is at a Morton Steakhouse in Los Angeles. He's in his 40s with a bit of a baby face, which he sometimes covers up with trendy glasses and stubbles.
He's flown here from Chicago for a meeting with one of his heroes, Tom Girardi, a powerhouse in the legal field and an inspiration to Jay. But after Jay gets seated, he starts feeling like something is off with Tom. We actually talked to Jay for this episode, and here's how he described this moment. It really felt like out of nowhere.
like a bad mafia movie where someone just kind of has control of a restaurant and they just do all of their business at the restaurant. So he had multiple tables. We had special Tom Girardi menus, so we weren't allowed to order off the normal menu. There was so much pomp and circumstance. It was really kind of absurd. Jay's ready to talk business. He and Tom are here to plan a pitch to a potential client.
Their firms want to work together on an upcoming opioid case against some major pharmaceutical companies.
But very quickly, Jay gets the sense that Tom doesn't know anything about the case. It seems like he has no strategy beyond calling in favors. Jay gets the ick. And the pitch meeting with the potential client? It did not go well. It was really one of the most embarrassing meetings I've ever been in. It was all about him, again, explaining how much influence he had. I do believe he thought he was charming. And nobody else did in the room.
Oh, there is something devastating about seeing someone who thinks that they're charming everybody and actually everyone is seeing them as like the emperor has no clothes. Yeah, it's called getting lost in your own sauce. That's the medical diagnosis for that.
The whole experience leaves Jay feeling gutted. But this is just the start of a long, dramatic battle between the two lawyers. And when Jay discovers that Tom is a straight-up grifter, he'll do anything in his power to stop him. From Wondery, I'm Sarah Hagee. And I'm Sachi Cole. And this is Scamfluencers. Scamfluencers.
In our last episode, Tom Girardi built a reputation as a legendary Los Angeles lawyer who fights for the little guy. All while his much younger wife, Erica Girardi, appears on reality TV and performs as Erica Jane, her pop star alter ego. But behind the scenes, Tom has been accused of stealing his client's settlement money. He's been running this con for decades, totally unchecked.
But when another lawyer dares to take him on, Tom will finally face his own day in court. This is The Power Broker and the Pop Star Part Two.
It's January 2019, about a year after Jay and Tom's meeting. Andy Cohen is throwing a baby shower at The Palm, a swanky steakhouse in Beverly Hills. Andy is the executive producer of Bravo's Real Housewives franchise. And the theme of the shower is, a star is born.
The guests at his shower include basically every housewife who's ever been on the show. NeNe Leakes of Atlanta, Vicki Gunvalson of The Real Housewives of Orange County, Karen Huger, the Grand Dame of Potomac, and John Mayer. Things get wild with women dancing on tables and posing with a giant baby bottle in the photo booth.
Sachi, I know you remember seeing this on social media too. Oh, I ate these photos up. They were so weird. They went viral because it was like they shouldn't all be there together. It felt like a full glitch in a matrix where every timeline somehow is happening at the same time and like your future self is meeting your past self. I was like, oh, I guess this is how nerds feel when they see like all the Avengers hanging out or something. Yeah.
Yeah, it was my endgame. Well, Erika Girardi is there too, and her gift for Andy's baby is 1,000 shares of Disney stock.
But unfortunately for Andy and his family, he never actually receives these shares. Because later that month, Erica's husband Tom is sued by one of his firm's creditors. You might be wondering why Tom's firm has to borrow money. Taking out loans isn't an uncommon practice for law firms. Plaintiffs' lawyers, like Tom, often work on contingency, which means they don't take any money from clients unless they win their case.
Often, they turn to lenders to help keep them afloat. Creditors expect that once a firm settles their cases, they'll get their money back with interest. It's risky, but there's a whole cottage industry that does this kind of work. One of those lenders is a company called Law Finance Group, or LFG.
They've given money to Tom's firm many times. But at this point, Tom's firm hasn't paid its debts for years. So LFG decides to sue Girardi-Keith. In the suit, LFG alleges they're owed $15 million. It also claims that when they examined Girardi-Keith's records, they saw huge amounts of money, labeled as loans, going from the firm's accounts to a company called EJ Global.
As in Erika Jayne Global. It was set up in 2008 to fund Erika's music career. And in the decade or so since then, Tom's firm has wired the company more than $20 million. On top of that, LFG alleges in the lawsuit that Tom used money they lent Girardi Keys to prop up his and Erika's bougie lifestyle.
These allegations are pretty damning, and Tom is pissed. Especially since LFG filed the suit in the Superior Court for Los Angeles County, rather than through private arbitration, where it would have been kept confidential. Sachi, can you read a bit from the actual mailed letter Tom wrote to LFG's lawyer? It says,
I, however, have been massively damaged. Four judges called me after they saw the lying materials. I told the judges the truth and that we would be filing a claim. At the end of the trial, we will find if I'm a better lawyer or if you're a better liar. It's kind of iconic. I love it.
Well, Tom ultimately settles with LFG. But the lawsuit has tipped off the firm's other creditors, and many of them start coming to collect. But Tom's hoping he can avoid further scrutiny by ramping up on gifts to some powerful public figures.
In May 2019, the same week that Tom settles the lawsuit with LFG, he takes the stage at a private club in LA. He's hosting a fundraiser for Joe Biden, who's in town to raise money for his US presidential campaign. On stage, Tom praises the former vice president while Erica watches from the crowd wearing a fashionable blue dress.
Ever since Tom became friendly with California Governor Jerry Brown way back in the 70s, he's fostered powerful political relationships like this one with Biden. Just a month after the fundraiser, California Governor Gavin Newsom names Tom to an advisory committee to vet state judicial candidates.
Tom and Gavin have had a friendly and transactional relationship for years. About three years earlier in 2016, when Gavin was Lieutenant Governor of California, he appeared on Bravo's late night talk show, Watch What Happens Live.
Andy Cohen tells him. I was surprised to know that you have some ties to Erika Jayne. 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. I mean, I guess I'm glad he's at least honest about it. At least he wasn't like, I love expensive. It's my favorite song. Yeah.
Yeah. Also, it is insane that he's on Watch What Happens Live being like, Erica's my favorite housewife. It's like, have some self-respect, man. No one was ever saying that. No.
Tom's contributed millions of dollars to political candidates over the years, from Joe Biden and Barack Obama to Gavin Newsom and Dianne Feinstein. His Rolodex is filled with the biggest names in Washington, and he isn't afraid to call in favors. But the clients Tom has been ripping off aren't impressed. One of these clients has finally had enough. And this average Joe isn't intimidated by Tom's political connections.
He wants his money. It's June 2019, about a month after the Biden fundraiser. Joseph Rougomes is at his wit's end. Remember, Joseph is a man who survived a horrific fire caused by a gas line rupture. Tom represented Joseph and settled his case with PG&E about six years earlier. Joseph needed the settlement money to cover the medical treatments he'll need for the rest of his life.
But Joseph still hasn't received most of the money. And now he's in danger of losing his house. But Tom's such a powerful figure that Joseph and his family feel like they have nowhere to turn.
Here's a family friend of Joseph's talking about it on ABC News' The Housewife and The Hustler. 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 friend. It's like, who are we going to call? Like, Ghostbusters?
Ultimately, Joseph and his family decide to file a lawsuit against Girardi Keys for the remaining settlement money. Tom agrees to pay them $12 million. He says $1 million will be sent right away, and then another $2.5 million in a couple months, and so on. But that second payment never comes.
So the Rugomes family takes Tom back to court. And as part of that process, Tom sits for a video deposition. And in it, Tom seems different. His normally confident and charming persona is gone. He seems meek and confused. And then he admits something shocking, that he is completely broke.
Sachi, can you read this quote from his deposition? It says, That is so much money to just not have. It's insane. What did you buy? What could you have bought? That's an amount of money that, like, could change generations of a family. And it's like, well, that's all gone. Ugh.
And the deposition is not public. But the people who hear it, the Rugomes family and the lawyers involved in the case, are stunned. After four decades of towering influence, Tom now appears all too human. Joseph and his family have managed to hold Tom accountable for stealing from them. But it's not clear if Tom will ever be able to make them or any of his other victims whole.
It's November 2020, about six weeks since Tom sat for that shocking deposition. Kyle Richards, one of Erica's castmates on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, is setting up for an election night party. Just a few days earlier, Kyle, Erica, and the other housewives were on a trip to Lake Tahoe. Erica told the ladies about how great things had been going in her marriage and in Tom's business.
Now, Kyle's party planning is totally thrown off by a text she just received from Erica. It says that after 21 years of marriage, she's filing for divorce from Tom. Kyle immediately jumps on a FaceTime with fellow housewives Dorit Kemsley and Lisa Rinna to break it down. And obviously, Bravo's cameras are rolling.
is going on. Did you have any idea? No. And we were just in Tahoe and not one. Zero. Peep. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nothing.
Oh, Sachi, I know you, again, another classic moment for us in our brains that we remember like it was yesterday. I remember it so well. I will say one thing that always makes me laugh about the housewives is they believe they have an ownership over other people's bad news. Like they believe they should be told the second something bad happens to you and then they're like really offended that you don't tell them. Like, I just saw you for lunch and you didn't tell me that your entire life was falling apart. And I just think that that's really rude.
I mean, it is so funny that these women are all friends and they're all willing to talk as much shit as possible about the other behind closed doors in a way that I'm like, you know, that's not normal, right? That's not like what actual people do with their friends. Is that not what people do with their friends? It's not what I do with you, baby. And two episodes later, Erica meets up with her castmates.
She says that she and Tom had basically stopped communicating, that Tom would always shut down discussions about her feelings. She tells him that she left everything behind without even leaving a note. I let go of my Lamborghini. I let go of my 16,000 square foot home. I let go of my marriage. I let go of everything.
Such a crazy voice. I was just going to say, this is Erica's sad voice. It's crazy. It sounds like a zipper, an old zipper slowly being pulled. This is not the tone of voice of anybody found in nature. It's wild.
Well, later, Erica claims on the show that she left because Tom cheated. On Instagram, she posts screenshots of what she says are text messages between Tom and a California appeals court justice he was having an affair with.
Sachi, this post has since been deleted, but here's an archived version of it. And it's so good because it's photographs of texts from a flip phone because Tom is 400 years old. Also, some of the screenshots, you're like, is this sexting? Because it goes, I can't believe it. Dr. Matlock is already calling and asking for the check. You see Dr. Matlock texting.
being invoked a few times here. I'm like, what is that code for? I don't know what that's about. But the sexier ones are, miss you, babe, makeup sex? Tonight was fantastic. Really. I mean, you have to keep it relative to the person. He's old. This is very sensual for him. Yeah.
Yeah. The thing that I remember the most from these screenshots when they went public is that all of the, like, sexy photos from this woman are her wearing... Jeans. Skinny jeans and a t-shirt. Yeah, that's X-rated. And according to a later court filing, Tom showered the justice with gifts during the course of their four-year-long affair.
Among those gifts, $300,000 to help buy her a beachfront vacation property in Santa Monica. The money wasn't wired from Tom's personal bank account, though. It was wired from a separate account containing settlement money owed to Tom's clients. Victims like Joseph, who had suffered horrible tragedies and looked to Tom to make things right.
The woman Tom had an affair with says she didn't know that the money she received from him actually belonged to his clients. She has since returned the gifts.
Erica also denies having any knowledge of Tom's financial fraud. But it's clear the dynamics in her and Tom's relationship has shifted. When they first met, Tom was a hotshot lawyer and Erica was the waitress-turned-housewife. Now, more than two decades later, Tom's reputation is on the rocks and his bank accounts are empty.
Erica's the one with earning power. She's a bona fide pop star and a reality TV sensation. But now that Erica and Tom are tabloid news, one of Tom's former associates knows it's time to strike. He's ready to get payback for himself and his clients.
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Jay's a Chicago lawyer who met with Tom at Morton's Steakhouse. About 10 months earlier, Jay's firm and Tom's firm reached a series of huge settlements on behalf of their clients. They'd partnered to represent some of the families of victims of a horrific plane crash, a Lion Air flight that killed 189 people.
The plane was manufactured by Boeing, and it turns out it had a malfunctioning control system. Lawyers clamored to represent the victims, but one lawyer stood out among the rest: Tom. He promised the families he'd get them the biggest possible payout. And with his reputation, why wouldn't they believe him?
After the settlements to the victims were finalized, Boeing transferred millions of dollars into a Girardi-Keese trust account. Girardi-Keese was responsible for distributing the funds to the families of the victims and to Jay's firm.
But Jay hasn't been able to get a clear answer from anyone at Girardi Keys about whether the clients have actually gotten their money. Jay's also been hounding Girardi Keys about the $2.5 million that's owed to his firm. When he hears about Erica filing for divorce, he's suspicious. Here's what Jay said in our interview. So at that point, my take being the cynical person I am,
Jay files a motion in the Lion Air case asking the judge to look into the $2 million of missing settlement money. The judge takes this accusation...
really seriously. It helps that the lawsuit was filed in Illinois, far away from Tom's influence in California. The judge orders both Jay and Tom to appear in court. Jay alleges that Tom has been taking settlement money from new Girardi Keys clients to pay off old ones who are owed money. A classic Ponzi scheme. ♪
Jay also alleges that Girardi Keys had been using client settlement money to pay its bills, with Tom taking millions for himself. Jay's accusing Tom of embezzlement, which is a disparable offense. And when it's Tom's turn to defend himself, there's crickets. According to his lawyers, Tom, who is now in his early 80s, has issues of mental competence and has been unable to help them understand where the money went.
The judge is furious. He immediately freezes Tom's assets. Then the judge refers the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for criminal investigation. So now the DOJ is sniffing around Tom's mess too. And it turns out Jay isn't the only one suspicious about Erica's sudden divorce announcement.
Three days after the judge freezes Tom's assets, the LA Times releases a 4,000-word expose that outlines bombshell allegations against Tom over the course of decades.
The day after the story is published, Tom's longtime partner, Robert Keese, files a petition forcing their firm into bankruptcy. The firm is officially shut down. We reached out to Robert for comment, and he declined to talk to us.
After decades of spearheading big cases, swaying top politicians, and even getting the Hollywood treatment, it looks like Tom's winning streak is finally over. And soon, the State Bar of California, the very group he worked so hard to keep under his thumb, will turn on him too.
In February 2021, about two months after his firm files for bankruptcy, Tom is placed under the temporary conservatorship of his younger brother, Robert.
Robert had told a judge that Tom wasn't capable of making rational decisions about his finances. And his lawyers claim that when Tom was asked about his money, his responses were factually impossible. About a week after the judge grants a temporary conservatorship, Tom's Pasadena mansion is robbed while he's at home.
When Erica recounts the robbery to Kyle on The Real Housewives, the story is convoluted and to some people, unbelievable. Here's what she said. Tom's house was broken into and he confronted the burglar and then had to go have eye surgery. And then my son had to go and help. And then my son, he rolled his car five times on the way home. Yeah, I'm under a lot of stress. Wait, what?
She continues and goes, I got a call at three in the morning, but didn't get it until six from the Pasadena Police Department that Tom's home had been broken into. He confronted the burglar and then he had to go to the hospital and have some sort of surgery. I don't even really know. Sashi, this is such an iconic moment in Housewives history.
I have this on a pillow that my former co-workers got for me as a housewarming gift. And people are like, why does that? Who's Tom? And why was this house broken into? And I'm like, Tom's house is broken into. And he confronted the burglar. And then he had to go have eye surgery. My son had to go over and help him. And my son rolled his car over five times on the way home. So yeah, I am under a lot of stress. Yes.
I fucking cannot. I think people have actually under-indexed how elemental this quote is to the Housewives universe. It changed everything.
Everything. There is a before her son rolled over his car five times on the way home because she's under a lot of stress. And then after that, there's only two timelines. Also, as the story continues and it's mentioned throughout the season, someone's like, yeah, she said it was like snowing in Pasadena. Snowing in Pasadena.
And so the car flipped over or something, and no one can quite grasp the story. But also, it's just like her delivery, how she says it without pausing for a breath. As you called it, her zipper voice. Yeah, she's using full zipper voice. Rehearsed zipper voice.
Well, shortly after the robbery, Tom moves into a care facility. A forensic psychiatrist examines Tom and diagnoses him with Alzheimer's. He says that Tom experiences delusions and disorganized thinking. But there's suspicions around Tom's diagnosis.
including from one of the organizations he used to be the most chummy with, the California State Bar. They allege that Tom's dementia diagnosis is an attempt to avoid accountability, and they file a complaint against him in March 2021.
To make their case, they point to the public appearances that Tom made just two months before he was placed under conservatorship. One of the appearances was a 90-minute long panel where he delivered advice on how to conduct a jury trial.
About nine months later, in December 2021, the Chicago judge overseeing the plane crash case holds a hearing. He calls Tom's behavior unconscionable. Sachi, can you read some more of what the judge said at the hearing? Yes. The judge said, quote, It's an embarrassment to the whole legal community that people in Indonesia are being ripped off by someone who is acting like a two-bit crook. I'm not going to restrain myself on this. This is an embarrassment.
Oh, judges don't like it when judges look bad in public. No, they don't. And also it's like, these are people seeking justice for something that is such a clear-cut case of injustice.
negligence and they can't even get their money. Yeah. So, safe to say that Tom's legacy is now in ruins. The fallout has taken out his firm and thrown former associates into question. That includes his wife, Erica, especially when she doubled down on her extravagant public image. The next month, Erica is with some of her Real Housewives castmates in Aspen for a glamorous ski getaway.
It's January 2022, and she's filming for season 12 of the show. She pops into Ogier, a ski shop where a snowsuit with Swarovski crystals goes for an easy breezy 8K. Erika's wearing sporty reflective sunglasses, a giant fluffy fur coat, and matching boots.
And she's accessorizing with some huge diamond stud earrings that Tom bought her in 2007. At that time, they had a retail value of $750,000. But Erica now says they're worth more than a million dollars.
These earrings become a flashpoint both on the show and off. Some see them as a symbol of Erica's ambivalence towards the clients Tom stole money from. In bankruptcy filings, Erica says they were a gift, and she didn't know that Tom potentially paid for them with stolen money. Many of her fellow housewives feel like she should turn them over to Tom's bankruptcy trustee, not as an admission of guilt, but as an act of compassion—
But one night on the Aspen trip, during a drunken fight, Erica says that she doubts the victim's stories. Her castmates look on in horror. Keep in mind, half of them have also just taken edibles.
This was, thank God, captured for the show. Just because someone alleges that you did s***, you're going to throw your hands up and say, I did, oh my God, I feel so bad. People are thinking I'm terrible. Hold on a f***ing minute. That's one side of the story. Let's tell the other f***ing side. I don't give a f*** about anybody else but me. And you know what? This wasn't the first time Erica showed questionable judgment.
In May of 2021, she posted a caricature of herself burning at the stake on Instagram. She captioned it, scapegoat. Her earrings spell out the words, widows and orphans. It's a reference to the accusations that she and Tom have stolen from widows and orphans in the plane crash. This is so embarrassing. If I ever post anything that's even remotely close to this, are you going to stop me from being myself? That's
That's what I need to know. If you posted something even close to this, you'd be too far gone. I would give up on you. Oh, okay. Promising. And about three months later, Erika sued by a bankruptcy trustee. They're seeking to recoup some of the money they loaned to Girardi Keys, which then ended up in their account for AJ Global, the company funding Erika Jayne's pop star career.
The complaint alleges that Erica's allowance of $175,000 per month was paid by the law firm and that Erica had her own Girardi-Keiths credit card. Sachi, can you read this excerpt from the complaint? Yeah. It says, Erica directed all of her personal vendors to be paid by the law firm. Only Erica knew that her entire singing, acting, bling, brand, glam squad, and other Erica-only expenses were completely funded by Girardi-Keiths.
Damn. Erica's refusal to back away from her fabulous public image has put a target on her back. The court of law and public opinion are about to come for her with full force.
In July 2022, about a year after Erika posted that caricature of herself on Instagram, she steps off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport. She's returning from a camera-free vacation in Hawaii with two of her Real Housewives castmates.
And after everything that's been going on, she probably needed that vacation. A month earlier, a court demanded that she turn over the diamond earrings she'd been hanging onto. Now, she's dressed down in a white sweatsuit and sneakers. As she walks through baggage claim, she's approached by an unassuming woman carrying a stack of papers.
The woman tells Erika that she needs to give her these documents. Erika is being served, and this is all captured by paparazzi.
Erica, EJ Global, and two former Girardi-Keese attorneys are named in the new complaint filed by Jay's firm. It accuses Girardi of embezzling money that should have gone to his clients, and it alleges that Girardi-Keese was, quote, "...the largest criminal racketeering enterprise in the history of plaintiff's law."
The suit alleges that Erika knowingly used settlement money to prop up a lifestyle made for reality TV. It also claims that EJ Global was set up to funnel money from Girardi-Keese directly to Erika, and that Erika's public image was a front, helping sell the idea that Girardi-Keese was successful when it was struggling all along.
Things only get worse for Erica from there. About two months later, in September 2022, lots of her and Tom's stuff is auctioned off to raise money for Girardi-Keese's victims. The items for sale include a Chagall painting, a bronze bust of Tom himself, and an Erin Brockovich poster signed by Julia Roberts.
One of the strangest items is a rare holographic Charizard Pokemon card that was found in a storage room in the mansion's basement. One of the auctions brings in $232,000, and the earrings are sold to the wife of the bankruptcy trustee for $250,000, which really pisses Erica off. Lawsuits are coming for Erica from all angles.
Tom has wronged so many people and they're looking for answers. And for Jay Edelson, suing Erica is just one part of a grand plan to set things right in the wake of Tom's massive alleged fraud.
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Tom Girardi. This video is eight minutes long, and it's released in February 2023, about five months after Erica and Tom's belongings are auctioned off. The video features lookalike actors playing Tom and some Girardi case attorneys, and one who supposedly looks like Erica. The brainstorm. Actual rainstorms. The stormboard.
That guy rapping is Ari Sharg, a lawyer at Jay Edelson's firm. He's the person who wrote and performed the song. Let's hear one specific clip to really get a sense of the lyrics. And other lyrics include, and I'm not going to rap this, Despicably, the victims were defrauded by a decorated leader so horrifically.
EPC built differently. Not a single legal emcee can spit half as real as me. EPC, by the way, are the initials of Jay's firm. Don't you think this sounds like a Lin-Manuel Miranda rap song? Sounds like Hamilton. That is actually 100% true. And this guy's only problem is that he can't rap like Hamilton. That is actually the only problem.
The video was produced with the help of an L.A. production company that has worked on music videos for Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar, and DaBaby. Jay told us that he considers the music video, which was put together and paid for by his law firm, to be a form of legal advocacy. So this was a way where we felt we could speak directly to the public. Anytime you're dealing with legal issues, you can lose people in the weeds of it.
The music video is a chance for Jay to gloat, and honestly, he has a reason to. Roughly a week earlier, Tom was federally indicted. In California, he was charged with wire fraud and accused of embezzling more than $15 million from his clients. And in Illinois, he was hit with eight counts of wire fraud and four counts of contempt of court.
Jay is probably taking a victory lap right about now. And, thanks to his firm, some of Tom's victims have reason to celebrate too. About a year earlier, Jay got sick of waiting for Tom to pay out the victims in the case against Boeing. So he decided to pay some of them the millions they were owed using money from his own firm. Jay's firm hasn't been paid by Tom's firm yet either, but the arrangement allowed Jay to sue Tom on the victim's behalf without dragging them along.
The victims of the plane crash can finally move on. But the fight over Tom's legal accountability and Erika's is just gearing up. In March 2023, Tom Girardi appears on a video screen wearing a light gray sport jacket. He's checking in remotely to a court hearing. He's here to plead not guilty against the charges that he defrauded victims in the Boeing case.
The firm's head of accounting is indicted too, as is Tom's son-in-law. He also worked on the case and was named on the bank account containing settlement money. Tom doesn't speak other than to agree to hold the hearing over video. And for someone who spent decades at the top of the legal profession, Tom's now represented by a court-appointed attorney.
His lawyer claims that Tom suffers from health issues that prevent him from understanding the court proceeding. Tom's brother, Robert, says Tom receives $3,000 per month in Social Security and has no other income. Tom is released into Robert's custody on a $250,000 bond.
But after years of back and forth, first with Tom, then with bankruptcy court, in April, a judge finally approved an $11.7 million payment to Joseph and his family. Two months later, in June 2023, there's a huge update. A government-appointed expert says Tom is competent enough to stand trial in the federal case in Illinois.
Around the same time, the California State Bar, inspired by Tom's case, passes a rule requiring attorneys to report misconduct by their peers.
I can't believe they didn't have a rule for that until now. Yeah, and they also created new rules mandating that attorneys register and report their clients' trust accounts to the state bar. Since it went into effect about a year ago, more than 1,600 attorneys have been suspended for violating the rules. How depressing.
Meanwhile, Erica is thriving. She's still a real housewife of Beverly Hills and has been spotted filming for the next season. In July 2023, she won an appeal over the decision to auction off her diamond earrings. The court sided with her, saying the earrings never should have been given to the bankruptcy trustee in the first place. Also, it seems like Erica is trying to make amends with Tom's victims.
About a week before she won the appeal, she was spotted paying a visit to an L.A. restaurant co-owned by Joseph Rue Gomez's mother, Kathy. She reportedly held a meeting with Kathy and some of Tom's other alleged victims. And even without Tom's financial support, she hasn't given up on her pop star dreams. She's currently preparing for her Las Vegas residency, Bet It All on Blonde, which starts in late August 2023. ♪
Sachi, we know a lot about the Real Housewives, especially Beverly Hills. But I do feel like you learned a lot more with these Tom Girardi episodes. Yeah, I mean, I thought I knew the depth of it, but I don't think I really understood it. I think having it laid out like this has really changed my understanding. Yes. I think it's also changed my understanding of like what Erica knew and when she knew it. I can see how she just sort of said to herself over and over again, I don't know.
He's going to take care of me. But that's not a justifiable excuse. Yes. Indefinitely. And, you know, widows and orphans are kind of where you don't have empathy for that argument anymore. And she has acted so poorly in public that, like, her ex-husband is the real scammer. Of course. Tom Girardi is the problem. But she has behaved so poorly in the public discourse that people are associating her even more with what he did.
Yeah, I do believe she was a victim to Tom's behavior in some ways, but it's not on par with people who put their trust in this person waiting for millions of dollars and then seeing information that your money was being funneled into his wife's vanity pop star career. Yeah, I mean, I would be embarrassed. I hope she's embarrassed. She must be. That must be why her old zipper voice is...
acting a fool. That's why her voice went down so many octaves. Yeah, it's because she's, it's a shame-based response. Nobody believes somebody feels bad when their voice is up here. You only believe it when it's down here and this is how they're talking. So do you think Tom would have faced any real consequences if it wasn't for Erica being on the show? I don't think so. You really don't think so? I think it needed to be expedited in this way. Maybe it would have come up, but he's an old man.
How long would that have taken, right? I don't, I think like the show is partly why I think there was increased investigation into her and then also her husband. If she had not been on that show, I don't think there would have been as much attention paid to how much money he had and the fact that this money wasn't actually appearing in anybody else's bank accounts. It is also shit like this that gives conspiracy theorists a huge leg up.
Being like, nothing matters. Everything is being controlled by money and these blizzard people. And you know what? Tom was able to do whatever he wanted with his influence over all these people. And we had no say in that. Yeah, this is a really sad story about how long money can talk. Oh, yeah. Everything is just...
a game of The Sims or civilization to these people. So are you still listening to Erika Jayne's albums on repeat as you were before all of this happened? I don't know, man. I can't really separate the art from the artists with this one. It's really hard for me now to listen to Expensive and feel empowered by it. Yeah, it's tough. Context changes art. And that's really what we're here to talk about. ♪
This is The Power Broker and the Pop Star, Part Two. I'm Sarah Hagee. And I'm Saatchi Cole. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were ABC News Originals' Housewife and the Hustler, MSNBC's American Greed, Tom Durrardi sued by Indonesia's Lion Air Crash families over claims U.S. lawyer embezzled millions of their settlement funds in ABC News Australia, written by Ann Barker and Archikio Giuliano, Brad
Brandon Lowry's reporting for Law360, and the investigative work of the Los Angeles Times reporters Harriet Ryan and Matt Hamilton. Jessica Ford wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagee. Our senior producer is Jen Swan. Our producer is John Reed. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peary.
Our story editor and producer is Sarah Enni. Eric Thurm is our story editor. Sound design is by Sam Ada. Fact-checking by Will Taplin. Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesound Sync. Our coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock. Our managing producer is Matt Gant, and our senior managing producer is Ryan Lohr.
Kate Young and Olivia Richard are our series producers. Our senior story editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Our senior producer is Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Janine Cornelow, Stephanie Jens, Jenny Lauer Beckman, and Marshall Lui for Wondery. ♪
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