
Credit: startraksphoto
On Wednesday, the trustee for Tom Girardi’s bankruptcy case accused him of buying $750,000 diamond earrings with funds from a client trust account.
The earrings were given to the former attorney’s wife, Erika Jayne (a current cast member on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills).
According to court docs obtained by Page Six, Erika’s attorney Evan Borges pointed out, “Not even the trustee alleges that Erika knew the source of funds that her wealthy husband used to buy her a gift of earrings 15 years ago (which replaced a prior set of earrings bought years prior to that).”
“Erika is completely innocent,” he said.
As a “showing of good faith,” Erika agreed not to sell or transfer the earrings during the investigation.
Until a “final order is entered,” the earrings will remain with a third party.
According to the legal documents, Tom “concealed the theft by describing the purpose of the check on the GK Rezulin Trust Account (‘RTA’) Ledger as a ‘cost’ item of the ‘Rezulin’ mass tort litigation, noting the payee to be ‘M&M’ [the name of the jewelers] without further explanation.”
Attorney Ronald Richards, who is supposedly no longer involved in the bankruptcy case, told the outlet: “By mislabeling these as ‘costs,’ the clients got less money. This was an outright theft of client money.”
Ronald also posted alleged “receipts” on Twitter with the caption, “Trying to breakdown this massive wire & tax fraud by Girardi Keese. Receipts: @erikajayne received millions in jewelry purchases by [Tom’s law firm] faking M&M checks as case costs. Recently, foolish Erika Girardi claimed an interest in the firm under penalty of perjury via her atty.”
Trying to breakdown this massive wire & tax fraud by Girardi Keese. Receipts: @erikajayne received millions in jewelry purchases by GK faking M&M checks as case costs. Recently, foolish Erika Girardi claimed an interest in the firm under penalty of perjury via her atty. 🆘🚨⬇️💰 pic.twitter.com/jiAeI5qUCq
— Ronald Richards (@RonaldRichards) January 26, 2022
Evan, however, claims the trustee’s allegations are “inadmissible hearsay based on no statement from anyone with personal knowledge, and which amounts to random Girardi Keese (‘GK’) records that the trustee stated only months ago were in complete disarray and unreliable.”
He said this “casts doubt” on the claim that the firm’s money was used to purchase the jewelry.
Evan believes the trustee is attempting to make Erika responsible “for the conduct of others, including her now-estranged husband who is under a court-ordered conservatorship and allegedly mentally incompetent.”