Tom Girardi sentenced to prison on 86th birthday after fraud conviction
By Eileen Reslen
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An unhappy birthday.
Tom Girardi was sentenced to prison for fraud on Tuesday, which happens to be his 86th birthday.
A Los Angeles judge ruled that the disgraced former attorney will serve seven years and three months behind bars, according to NBC News.
He was also reportedly ordered to pay $2.3 million in restitution to his victims, a $35,000 fine and surrender to begin his prison sentence on July 17.
Girardi’s attorneys had been fighting for their elderly client to serve his sentence at a long-term care facility due to his alleged late on-set Alzheimer’s and dementia diagnoses.
Tom Girardi was sentenced to prison Tuesday.
BACKGRID
Tom Girardi.
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He will serve more than seven years behind bars instead of at a long-term care facility, as his attorneys requested.
Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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A sworn affidavit written by Dr. Nathan Lavid, a Long Beach forensic and clinical psychiatrist, and previously obtained by Page Six read, “Dementia impairs his ability to understand the hearing. His emotional distress is directly related to his dementia and exacerbated by his confusion.”
However, the estranged husband of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Jayne was found competent by the judge to serve in his fraud trial last year.
He was then forced to go to court to battle a February 2023 indictment that accused him of embezzling $15 million from his former Girardi & Keese clients. The law firm co-founder had been charged with five counts of wire fraud.
Tom Girardi.
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Girardi was on trial for fraud last year.
Mona Shafer Edwards / BACKGRID
Tom Girardi.
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His attorneys have claimed he is battling Alzheimer’s and dementia, but a judge found him competent to stand the trial.
Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Girardi was asked during the trial about the missing settlement funds in the case of his former clients, including Joe Ruigomez, a young man who was badly burned due to a gas line.
“I wouldn’t have said that,” the disbarred attorney said when asked why he told Ruigomez that his settlement was for $5 million instead of $53 million. “I didn’t intentionally ever tell anyone the wrong thing.”
His victims also included the families of those killed in the Lion Air 610 flight in 2018.
Girardi was found guilty on four counts of wire fraud in August 2024 after less than a day of jury deliberations.
Tom Girardi.
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Girardi, a formerly well-respected attorney in Los Angeles, was found guilty in August 2024.
Getty Images for Annenberg Space
Erika Jayne and Tom Girardi.
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His estranged wife, Bravo star Erika Jayne, filed for divorce in November 2020.
Steve Eichner/NameFace/Sipa USA
Jayne — who filed to divorce her ex in November 2020 but has yet to finalize the split — said on “RHOBH” following the trial verdict, “I could have never saw this coming.”
“Tom was loved, he was admired, he was accomplished,” the Bravo star, 53, continued in a confessional interview. “And this is how his story ended. I don’t know that I’ll ever get over that.”
The former couple was married for 22 years. They shared no children together.
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