Girardi to Remain in Prison as He Awaits Fraud Conviction Appeal

Tom Girardi will remain incarcerated as he awaits the appeal of his criminal fraud conviction for stealing millions of dollars from his clients, a Los Angeles federal judge ruled.

Girardi’s defenders failed to raise any substantial questions of law or fact in their motion for his release, US District Court for the Central District of California Judge Josephine L. Staton said.

Her finding that the 86-year-old ex-lawyer was exaggerating his cognitive decline wasn’t shown by his attorneys to be “illogical, implausible, unreasonable, or lacking in evidentiary support,” she said in a Friday ruling.

Prison psychologists’ evaluation of Girardi this year “does more to support the Court’s competency finding than to detract from it,” Staton said.

The report said Girardi has difficulty recalling new memories and his executive skills are slowing, but he’s overall “alert and partially oriented,” with appropriate social interaction and strong language skills.

Girardi’s own testimony “is itself strong evidence” that he was mentally competent during the August 2024 trial, Staton said.

“As discussed throughout, the timing of Defendant’s first claim of incompetency was suspect from its inception,” Staton said, finding a lack of evidence that his competency was ever questioned before accusations surfaced in 2020 that he was mishandling client settlement funds.

She rejected his team’s other three arguments that she improperly allowed evidence gathered by the Girardi Keese firm’s bankruptcy; several wires at issue in his conviction were compelled by state law; and the court erred by instructing jurors on lawyers’ ethical duties.

The incompetence argument raised a due process issue so important that Girardi’s conviction would likely be reversed if the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found in his favor, Staton said. But none of the other arguments concerned issues meeting that bar, she said.

Girardi is currently serving his seven-plus year federal prison sentence in the Metropolitan Detention Center, Los Angeles.

The case is USA v. Girardi, C.D. Cal., No. 2:23-cr-00047, 9/19/25.