Girardi Son-in-Law Pleads to Contempt in Chicago Fraud Case (2)

A former Girardi Keese attorney Thursday pleaded guilty to criminal contempt related to the firm’s failure to distribute millions of dollars in settlement funds to victims of a fatal plane crash.

David Lira, son-in-law of disgraced attorney Tom Girardi, pleaded guilty to a count alleging he violated a court order directing them to send the victims their money.

“Mr. Lira continually asked Mr. Girardi to pay these clients their rightful settlement money pursuant to the court order, however Girardi did not,” Lira attorney Damon Cheronis wrote in an emailed statement after the change of plea hearing. “Mr. Lira was also subject to that court order.”

Cheronis, of Cheronis & Parente LLC, also emphasized that the plea agreement “did not assert any acts of fraud on the part of Mr. Lira in depriving the clients their settlement funds.”

The plea averts a trial that had been scheduled for July. US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Judge Mary Rowland set sentencing for October.

Rowland noted from the bench that prosecutors and Lira’s defense were “very far apart” on the appropriate sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors intend to argue the guidelines allow for up to about eight years, she said, while the defense intends to argue for six to 12 months, the judge said.

Lira, who left the firm in June 2020, was charged in Chicago federal court alongside Girardi and the firm’s ex-CFO Christopher Kamon. Kamon has entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors, court records show, while charges were dropped against Girardi.

Settlement Scandal

The charges stem from lawsuits filed against Boeing for a fatal 2018 Lion Air crash in Indonesia. After settlements were reached as to certain victims, Boeing in March 2020 paid the settlement money into a fund controlled by Girardi Keese, which for months didn’t distribute the funds.

The court order required Girardi Keese to send the clients their money “as soon as practicable,” prosecutors noted at Thursday’s hearing, saying Lira knew Girardi hadn’t paid.

At a 2021 hearing connected to the Boeing civil case, Lira testified he began working for Girardi Keese in 1999 but was never a partner and didn’t have ownership interest.

Lira, who is married to Girardi’s daughter by his first wife, described his family’s relationship to Girardi as somewhat distant. Lira and his wife rarely saw Girardi in a social context, Lira said, and Girardi’s relationship with Lira’s children is “zero.”

Lira also recounted a “very heated” confrontation with Girardi the day Lira resigned from the firm, saying he warned Girardi that failing to pay the clients would be “professional suicide.”

“And I said, ‘You’re going to be disbarred. You’re going to be criminally indicted. There is no excuse for what’s happened. I’ve asked you time and time again to pay these people,’” Lira testified.

Girardi, meanwhile, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison this week in a Central District of California case after being convicted of defrauding clients.

The case is US v. Lira, N.D. Ill., No. 1:23-cr-00054, change of plea hearing 6/5/25.