Erika Jayne Faces Trial As Tom Girardi’s Money Man Gets 10 Years In Prison

An accountant who helped disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi steal from seriously injured clients and their families was sentenced Friday to 10 years in federal prison after a judge rejected his lawyer’s argument that he should be credited for payments the clients received while they were being victimized.

Christopher Kazuo Kamon, 51, cried as he apologized for his crimes, but U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton said his statements “were rather vague” and his written letter falsely portrayed him “as a victim of the justice system.”

Staton said Kamon blamed Girardi for the crimes while ignoring his role as the “mastermind of an almost equally sophisticated scheme to steal millions from the Girardi case accounts.”

“He was following no one’s orders in stealing that money,” the judge said during a two-hour hearing in Los Angeles.

Kamon has been in jail since December 2022 after he was arrested as he returned to the United States from the Bahamas. He was charged with stealing millions of dollars from Girardi’s law firm in a scheme prosecutors say Girardi didn’t know about. He also was indicted alongside Girardi for the client fraud scheme that led a jury to convict Girardi of four counts of wire fraud last August.

Girardi is due in Staton’s courtroom on May 8 for a hearing on his mental status after he was evaluated at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Medical Center in North Carolina. Staton sent him there over his attorneys’ objections because of a federal law that says criminal defendants can be committed to a mental health facility instead of prison if their mental status requires it. He was released on Feb. 25. Prosecutors want him sentenced to 14 years in prison while his public defenders say he should stay in his assisted living center.

Erika Jayne, meanwhile, is fighting a lawsuit from Miller that seeks nearly $25 million that Jayne and her companies EJ Global, LLC and Pretty Mess Inc. received from Girardi Keese funds between 2007 and 2020.

“The Trustee further contends that the two corporate defendants were and are mere shells and the alter-ego of Ms. Girardi, and therefore Ms. Girardi is personally obligated for all obligations owed by the two corporate defendants to the Debtor,” according to a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. “The Trustee also contends that Ms. Girardi knowingly and willingly participated in Mr. Girardi’s criminal enterprise and the money used to pay her business expenses were monies from that criminal enterprise.”

The case is with U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang in Los Angeles. A status conference is scheduled for June 4.

Read more in Meghann Cuniff’s article: https://www.legalaffairsandtrials.com/p/tom-girardis-cfo-gets-10-years-in

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