Ex-lawyer Tom Girardi's former CFO had escape plan and lavish spending habits, ex-fiancee testifies
Attorney Tom Girardi is pictured outside a Los Angeles courthouse in July 2014. The former chief financial officer of the now-collapsed Girardi Keese law firm in Los Angeles asked his former fiancee to flee to the Bahamas with him in 2022, she testified Tuesday in the embezzlement trial of Girardi. (Photo by Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press)
The former chief financial officer of the now-collapsed Girardi Keese law firm in Los Angeles asked his former fiancee to flee to the Bahamas with him in 2022, she testified Tuesday in the embezzlement trial of disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi.
Testifying for the defense, Nicole Rokita, the ex-fiancee of former CFO Christopher Kamon, said “basically told me he was going to flee the country because he was afraid … he was going to be pinned for Girardi Keese,” Law360 reports.
The plan was for Rokita to hold on to Kamon’s money when he lived under a new identity, she said.
Rokita told Kamon that it wasn’t a good idea. She said she broke up with Kamon years before, in October 2018, when she discovered financial documents suggesting that Kamon’s largesse and lavish spending habits were funded by the firm.
Kamon had given Rokita a monthly allowance of $20,000, had renovated their home, and had begun to build a restaurant for her to operate.
Rokita also said Kamon had about a dozen side businesses, including one that provided “portable stripper pole rental services,” Law.com reports.
Kamon was charged in November 2022 with a $10 million “side fraud” scheme while working at the now-defunct firm. He was arrested that same month after stepping off a plane from the Bahamas in Baltimore.
Girardi was part of the successful legal team portrayed in the film Erin Brockovich. His estranged wife is Erika Girardi, who has appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reality TV show.
Girardi is on trial in Los Angeles for allegedly stealing $15 million from four clients; Kamon is accused of facilitating the embezzlement in the California case.
Girardi and Kamon, along with former Girardi Keese lawyer David R. Lira, are also charged in Chicago in an alleged $3 million theft of settlement funds from five relatives of victims killed in an October 2018 plane crash.
Girardi’s lawyers blame Kamon for missing money and allege that Girardi wasn’t responsible for financial problems because of his dementia. Prosecutors, on the other hand, contend that Girardi treated the client trust account “like a personal piggy bank,” Law360 reported.
Testifying for the defense last week, a neurology professor said Girardi has such a small brain hippocampus that 98% of people likely have a larger one.
Another witness who testified last week, former accounting employee Norina Rouillard, acknowledged that she thought that Girardi “was off” by November 2020.
“He didn’t seem all there at that time,” Rouillard said.
Girardi called Rouillard 35 times in one day and asked her after the December 2020 collapse of Girardi Keese how to get the firm reopened, she testified.
Girardi’s two longtime secretaries also testified about Girardi’s growing confusion, according to Law360 and Law.com.
“He would dictate letters, the same letters to the same clients repeatedly, and be looking for the same files repeatedly,” former secretary Kim Cory testified.
Cory and the other secretary testified, however, that Girardi remained in charge of Girardi Keese until its closure.
