Imagine the movie Hollywood will make about this one.
The former head of accounting at defunct law firm Girardi Keese received a prison sentence of 10 years plus one month for his role in embezzling “millions of dollars” from the firm and its clients, the Department of Justice announced.
US District Judge Josephine Staton sentenced 51-year-old Christopher Kamon to prison and ordered him to pay $8.9 million in restitution last week after Kamon pleaded guilty in October to two counts of wire fraud.
According to a DOJ news release, Kamon worked with celebrity lawyer Tom Girardi to defraud clients of the “once-prominent” Los Angeles-based personal injury law firm out of settlement money. They in turn used the money on payroll, credit card bills, and personal expenses. The scheme reached back “from at least 2010 until December 2020.”
“Mr. Kamon was a willful participant in defrauding Girardi Keese clients out of their rightful lawsuit awards,” Tyler Hatcher, special agent in charge at IRS Criminal Investigation, said in the release. “Not only did he participate in a scheme to embezzle from clients, but Mr. Kamon also embezzled from the firm itself for his own personal use, including to purchase a multimillion-dollar home in the Bahamas.”
Lost in Hollywood. Girardi represented clients in high-profile cases including the Hinkley water contamination lawsuit against PG&E—which inspired the 2000 movie Erin Brockovich starring Julia Roberts—and a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company Merck that resulted in a $4.9 billion settlement.
A federal jury found Girardi guilty of four counts of wire fraud in August. Prosecutors argued during his trial that Girardi used the embezzled money to finance a “luxurious lifestyle” as shown on the reality TV show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills starring his former wife, Erika Girardi, CBS news reported.
Things started unraveling for Girardi and Kamon about four and a half years ago. Girardi Keese’s creditors forced the law firm into bankruptcy proceedings in December 2020, the firm dissolved the following month, and the State Bar of California disbarred Girardi in 2022.
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