Trustees for Girardi, Litigation Funder Sue Over Settlement Cash

The bankruptcy trustees for Girardi Keese and Joseph DiNardo seek to claw back nearly $3.2 million in transfers made in 2013 that they say were embezzled from a personal injury settlement.

The transfers are part of $10 million that convicted lawyer Thomas Girardi pocketed from settlement funds that should’ve been paid to his firm’s client who was injured in a Pacific Gas & Electric plant explosion, the trustees said in an Oct. 24 filing in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California.

The $3.16 million is half of the amount transferred in 2013 to investor Christopher Diamantis and D&D Funding II LLC, which he owned in part with DiNardo, according to the complaint. The transactions were “made with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors” or weren’t made in exchange for reasonably equivalent value, the trustees said.

The initial transfers, which were part of a wire fraud scheme from 2004 to 2020, stemmed from an “illegal fee-sharing agreement” between DiNardo and Girardi that was prohibited by California law, the trustees said.

Girardi was sentenced in June to more than seven years in federal prison for stealing millions of dollars from clients. He is awaiting an appeal of his conviction.

The Ruigomez family sued PG&E following a 2010 explosion that led to a fire which burned 90% of one family member’s body. DiNardo and his firm were allegedly given half of what Girardi Keese received for representing them without the family’s knowledge, according to court records.

The suit is the latest brought by Elissa D. Miller, the liquidating trustee for Girardi Keese, in her effort to claw back funds for creditors. She sued DiNardo and his law firm in February over an attempt to discharge a $7.5 million abetting fraud claim.

Wendy J. Christophersen, the Chapter 7 trustee for the DiNardo Law Firm, and Mark J. Schlant, the liquidating trustee for Joseph DiNardo, joined Miller in a joint prosecution agreement to pursue the recovery of the $3.16 million, according to the filing.

DiNardo filed for bankruptcy in 2023 after two litigation lenders reportedly associated with him avoided a suit that accused them of helping Girardi engage in fraud.

Girardi Keese’s former chief financial officer Christopher Kamon was sentenced in July to nearly five and a half years in prison after pleading guilty in the fraud scheme.

Girardi’s firm filed bankruptcy in 2020 after the fraud allegations started to mount.

Jenkins, Mulligan & Gabriel LLP and Gleichenhaus, Marchese & Weishaar PC represent the trustees.

The case is In re: Girardi Keese, Bankr. C.D. Cal., No. 20-bk-21022, complaint 10/24/25.