Girardi Denied New Trial by Judge Who Says Dementia Exaggerated

Convicted felon Tom Girardi won’t get a new trial, a California federal judge ruled, finding he exaggerated symptoms of dementia during a trial in August.

Judge Josephine L. Staton said the former lawyer—made famous in the “Erin Brockovich” movie and on the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” reality show—was competent to be tried, pointing to his surprise testimony and extensive note-taking during the weeks-long fraud trial.

“Overall, [Girardi] testified in a manner that was wholly consistent with the defense case,” Staton of the US District Court for the Central District of California said Monday in her order.

Girardi was competent enough during his testimony to lay blame on his firm’s former head of accounting, to say any failures to pay clients were mistakes and to downplay conversations he had with clients, Staton said.

Additionally, Girardi declined to submit his notes taken during trial, which Staton requested in light of several bids from his team that she find him incompetent.

“Those would be the kind of things that I would want to see,” she told his team during private meetings in August, according to the Monday order.

She also found the prosecution submitted enough evidence to support the jury’s conviction.

“There was evidence that Defendant used diverted client funds to support his celebrity-wife’s entertainment career and that he used these funds to pay for luxuries such as private jets, country club memberships, jewelry, and luxury vehicles,” she said.

Girardi, a pioneer of toxic tort litigation, was convicted of four counts of wire fraud in Los Angeles after a short jury deliberation. His former CFO and co-defendant Christopher Kamon agreed in October to plead guilty to wire fraud.

Ali Moghaddas, one of the prosecutors who helped convict Girardi, left his federal post in November to join Chicago-founded law firm Edelson PC.

One of Girardi’s lawyers, J. Alejandro Barrientos, left the public defender’s office to start his own shop for criminal defense and civil plaintiff work.

Girardi’s sentencing is scheduled for December 20. Federal prosecutors in Chicago, where he’s also facing criminal charges, said they may dismiss their case depending on his sentence in Los Angeles.

The case is USA v. Girardi, C.D. Cal., No. 2:23-cr-00047, 12/2/24.