Pod Insights Scamfluencers ENCORE: The Pop Star and the Power Broker: Part 2 | 172 About this episode As Erika Jayne’s pop star career blossoms, questions continue to mount about her husband Tom Girardi’s finances and his legal practice. His clients have been waiting in limbo to receive the settlement money owed to them, and they’re not the only ones getting angry with Tom. In the finale to this two-part series, Tom’s own legal woes overshadow his storied career. The revelations from multiple lawsuits and investigations will upend his reputation, his marriage, and even his freedom.
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Transcript 7,413 words · 14 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Scaachi Koul? Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.
0:08 Sarah Hagi? This is the second episode of a two-part series. I don't care how much Real Housewives you've watched, you're gonna be lost if you don't go back and listen to part one.
0:23 Sarah Hagi? Sachi, if you had any type of political influence, how would you use that to your advantage?
0:29 Scaachi Koul? I mean, I feel like you know I would only use it for evil.
0:33 Sarah Hagi? Well, I actually don't know how this would work, but I think the only, like, kind of illegal thing I would want would be an unlimited tap card for when I take the bus or subway, just so I never have to think about it.
0:45 Scaachi Koul? Are you a turnstile jumper?
0:47 Sarah Hagi? Well, if I could, I would, but we can't jump those in Toronto. It's like those doors.
0:51 Scaachi Koul? Oh, yeah, they're like bricks. I forgot. I could imagine you suddenly becoming very spry and jumping over a turnstile and surprising me.
0:59 Sarah Hagi? Well, as we discussed last episode, Tom Girardi started his career off emulating his do-gooder hero Perry Mason. But as he gained success, he also gained a lot of power and political influence. Power and influence that he didn't exactly use for good.
1:20 Sarah Hagi? It's 2018, and a lawyer named Jay Edelson is at a Morton Steakhouse in Los Angeles. He's in his 40s with a bit of a baby face, which he sometimes covers up with trendy glasses and stubble. He's flown here from Chicago for a meeting with one of his heroes, Tom Girardi, a powerhouse in the legal field and an inspiration to Jay. But after Jay gets seated, he starts feeling like something is off with Tom. We actually talked to Jay for this episode, and here's how he described this moment.
1:50 Speaker 02 It really felt like out of... Like a bad mafia movie where someone just kind of has control of a restaurant and they just do all of their business at the restaurant. So he had multiple tables. We had special Tom Girardi menus, so we weren't allowed to order off the normal menu. There was so much pomp and circumstance. It was really kind of absurd.
2:15 Sarah Hagi? Jay's ready to talk business. He and Tom are here to plan a pitch to a potential client. Their firms want to work together on an upcoming opioid case against some major pharmaceutical companies. But very quickly, Jay gets a sense that Tom doesn't know anything about the case. It seems like he has no strategy beyond calling in favors. Jay gets the ick. And the pitch meeting with the potential client, it did not go well.
2:41 Speaker 02 It was really one of the most embarrassing meetings I've ever been in. It was all about him, again, explaining how much influence he had. I do believe he thought he was charming and nobody else did in the room.
2:55 Scaachi Koul? Oh, there is something devastating about seeing someone who thinks that they're charming everybody and actually everyone is seeing them as like the emperor has no clothes.
3:04 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, it's called getting lost in your own sauce. That's the medical diagnosis for that. The whole experience leaves Jay feeling gutted, but this is just the start of a long, dramatic battle between the two lawyers. And when Jay discovers that Tom is a straight up grifter, he'll do anything in his power to stop him.
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4:35 Sarah Hagi? From Wondery, I'm Sarah Haggie. And I'm Sachi Cole. And this is Scamfluencers.
4:48 Sarah Hagi? In our last episode, Tom Girardi built a reputation as a legendary Los Angeles lawyer who fights for the little guy. All while his much younger wife, Erica Girardi, appears on reality TV and performs as Erica Jane, her pop star alter ego. But behind the scenes, Tom has been accused of stealing his client settlement money. He's been running this con for decades, totally unchecked. But when another lawyer dares to take him on, Tom will finally face his own day in court. This is The Power Broker and the Pop Star, Part Two.
5:31 Sarah Hagi? It's January 2019, about a year after Jay and Tom's meeting. Andy Cohen is throwing a baby shower at The Palm, a swanky steakhouse in Beverly Hills. Andy is the executive producer of Bravo's Real Housewives franchise. And the theme of the shower is "A Star is Born." The guests at his shower include basically every housewife who's ever been on the show: NeNe Leaks of Atlanta, Vicky Gunvalson of The Real Housewives of Orange County, Karen Hugur, the Grand Dam of Potomac. And John Mayer. Things get wild with women dancing on tables and posing with a giant baby bottle in the photo booth. Sachi, I know you remember seeing this on social media, too.
6:16 Scaachi Koul? Oh, I ate these photos up. They were so weird.
6:21 Sarah Hagi? They went viral because it was like, they shouldn't all be there together.
6:25 Scaachi Koul? It felt like a, like a full glitch in a matrix where every timeline somehow is happening at the same time. And like your future self is meeting your past self.
6:33 Sarah Hagi? I was like, oh, I guess this is how nerds feel when they see like all the Avengers hanging out or something.
6:41 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, it was my endgame.
6:43 Sarah Hagi? Well, Erika Girardi is there, too. And her gift for Andy's baby is 1,000 shares of Disney stock. But unfortunately for Andy and his family, he never actually receives these shares. Because later that month, Erika's husband, Tom, is sued by one of his firm's creditors. You might be wondering why Tom's firm has to borrow money. Taking out loans isn't an uncommon practice for law firms. Plaintiff's lawyers, like Tom, often work on contingency, which means they don't take any money from clients unless they win their case. Often, they turn to lenders to help keep them afloat. Creditors expect that once a firm settles their cases, they'll get their money back with interest.
7:26 Sarah Hagi? It's risky, but there's a whole cottage industry that does this kind of work. One of those lenders is a company called Law Finance Group, or LFG. They've given money to Tom's firm many times. But at this point, Tom's firm hasn't paid its debts for years. So LFG decides to sue Girardi Keith. In the suit, LFG alleges they're owed $15 million. It also claims that when they examined Girardi Keith's records, they saw huge amounts of money labeled as loans going from the firm's accounts to a company called EJ Global, as in Erika Jane Global.
8:08 Sarah Hagi? It was set up in 2008 to fund Erika's music career. And in the decade or so since then, Tom's firm has wired the company more than $20 million. On top of that, LFG alleges in the lawsuit that Tom used money they lent Girardi Keith to prop up his and Erika's bougie lifestyle.
8:29 Sarah Hagi? These allegations are pretty damning, and Tom is pissed, especially since LFG filed the suit in the Superior Court for Los Angeles County rather than through private arbitration, where it would have been kept confidential. Sachi, can you read a bit from the actual mailed letter Tom wrote to LFG's lawyer?
8:49 Scaachi Koul? It says, "Your claim that I used one penny of the funds for my lifestyle is total fraud. I, however, have been massively damaged. Four judges called me after they saw the lying materials. I told the judges the truth and that we would be filing a claim. At the end of the trial, we will find if I'm a better lawyer or if you're a better liar."
9:09 Sarah Hagi? It's kind of iconic. I love it. Well, Tom ultimately settles with LFG. But the lawsuit has tipped off the firm's other creditors, and many of them start coming to collect. But Tom's hoping he can avoid further scrutiny by ramping up on gifts to some powerful public figures.
9:35 Sarah Hagi? In May 2019, the same week that Tom settles the lawsuit with LFG, he takes the stage at a private club in LA. He's hosting a fundraiser for Joe Biden, who's in town to raise money for his US presidential campaign. On stage, Tom praises the former vice president while Erica watches from the crowd wearing a fashionable blue dress. Ever since Tom became friendly with California Governor Jerry Brown way back in the 70s, he's fostered powerful political relationships like this one with Biden. Just a month after the fundraiser, California Governor Gavin Newsom names Tom to an advisory committee to vet state judicial candidates. Tom and Gavin have had
10:19 Sarah Hagi? a friendly and transactional relationship for years. About three years earlier, in 2016, when Gavin was Lieutenant Governor of California, he appeared on Bravo's late-night talk show, Watch What Happens Live. Andy Cohen tells him--
10:35 Speaker 05 I was surprised to know that you have some ties to Erica Jane. Because her husband's one of the major donors in California politics. Wow. And does he give to you? He has been extraordinarily generous. Nice. So she is my favorite Real Housewife.
10:51 Scaachi Koul? I mean, I guess I'm glad he's at least honest about it. At least he wasn't like, I love "Expensive." It's my favorite song.
11:00 Sarah Hagi? Yeah. Also, it is insane that he's on Watch What Happens Live being like, Erica's my favorite housewife. It's like, have some self-respect, man.
11:09 Scaachi Koul? No one was ever saying that.
11:11 Sarah Hagi? No. Tom's contributed millions of dollars to political candidates over the years, from Joe Biden and Barack Obama to Gavin Newsom and Dianne Feinstein. His rolodex is filled with the biggest names in Washington, and he isn't afraid to call in favors. But the clients Tom has been ripping off aren't impressed. One of these clients has finally had enough. And this average Joe isn't intimidated by Tom's political connections. He wants his money.
11:47 Sarah Hagi? It's June 2019, about a month after the Biden fundraiser. Joseph Rue Gomez is at his wits' end. Remember, Joseph is a man who survived a horrific fire caused by a gas line rupture. Tom represented Joseph and settled his case with PG&E about six years earlier. Joseph needed the settlement money to cover the medical treatments he'll need for the rest of his life. But Joseph still hasn't received most of the money. And now, he's in danger of losing his house. But Tom's such a powerful figure that Joseph and his family feel like they have nowhere to turn. Here's a family friend of Joseph's talking about it on ABC News's "The Housewife and the Hustler."
12:31 Speaker 06 We can't go to the chief of police. That's Tom's friend. You can't go to the California Attorney General. That's Tom's friend. You can't go to the California bar. That's Tom's friend. It's like, who are we gonna call? Like Ghostbusters?
12:42 Sarah Hagi? Ultimately, Joseph and his family decide to file a lawsuit against Girardi Keys for the remaining settlement money. Tom agrees to pay them $12 million. He says $1 million will be sent right away, and then another $2.5 million in a couple months, and so on. But that second payment never comes. So the Rugomes family takes Tom back to court. And as part of that process, Tom sits for a video deposition. And in it, Tom seems different. His normally confident and charming persona is gone. He seems meek and confused. And then, he admits something shocking: that he is completely broke.
13:26 Sarah Hagi? Sachi, can you read this quote from his deposition?
13:29 Scaachi Koul? It says, "At one point, I had about 80 million or 50 million in cash. That's all gone. I also had a stock portfolio of about 50 million, and that's all gone."
13:39 Speaker 07 That is so much money to just not have. What did you buy? What could you have bought?
13:45 Sarah Hagi? That's an amount of money that could change generations of a family. And it's like, well, that's all gone. And the deposition is not public, but the people who hear it, the Rugomes family and the lawyers involved in the case, are stunned. After four decades of towering influence, Tom now appears all too human. Joseph and his family have managed to hold Tom accountable for stealing from them. But it's not clear if Tom will ever be able to make them, or any of his other victims, whole. It's November 2020, about six weeks since Tom sat for that shocking deposition.
14:28 Sarah Hagi? Kyle Richards, one of Erica's castmates on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, is setting up for an election night party. Just a few days earlier, Kyle, Erica, and the other housewives were on a trip to Lake Tahoe. Erica told the ladies about how great things had been going in her marriage and in Tom's business. Now, Kyle's party planning is totally thrown off by a text she just received from Erica. It says that, "After 21 years of marriage, she's filing for divorce from Tom." Kyle immediately jumps on a FaceTime with fellow housewives Dorit Kemsley and Lisa Rinna to break it down. And obviously, Bravo's cameras are rolling.
15:11 Speaker 07 What is going on? Did you have any idea? No idea. And we were just in tow and not one Zero. Piece of anything. Zip, zilch, nothing.
15:22 Sarah Hagi? Oh, Sachi, I know you, again, another classic moment for us in our brains that we remember like it was yesterday.
15:30 Scaachi Koul? I remember it so well. I will say one thing that always makes me laugh about the Housewives is they believe they have an ownership over other people's bad news. Like, they believe they should be told the second something bad happens to you, and then they're like really offended that you don't tell them. Like, I just saw you for lunch and you didn't tell me that your entire life was falling apart. And I just think that that's really rude.
15:52 Sarah Hagi? I mean, it is so funny that these women are all friends and they're all willing to talk as much shit as possible about the other behind closed doors in a way that I'm like, you know, that's not normal, right? That's not like what actual people do with their friends.
16:09 Scaachi Koul? Is that not what people do with their friends?
16:10 Sarah Hagi? It's not what I do with you, baby.
16:14 Sarah Hagi? And two episodes later, Erica meets up with her castmates. She says that she and Tom had basically stopped communicating, that Tom would always shut down discussions about her feelings. She tells them that she left everything behind without even leaving a note.
16:31 Speaker 08 I let go of my Lamborghini. I let go of my 16,000-square-foot home. I let go of my marriage. I let go of everything.
16:38 Scaachi Koul? She's such a crazy voice.
16:40 Sarah Hagi? I was just gonna say, this is Erica's sad voice.
16:43 Scaachi Koul? It's crazy. It sounds like a zipper, an old zipper slowly being pulled. This is not the tone of voice of anybody found in nature. It's wild.
16:54 Sarah Hagi? Well, later, Erica claims on the show that she left because Tom cheated. On Instagram, she posts screenshots of what she says are text messages between Tom and a California appeals court justice he was having an affair with. Sachi, this post has since been deleted, but here's an archived version of it. And it's so good because it's photographs of texts from a flip phone because Tom is 400 years old. Also, some of the screenshots, you're like, is this sexting? Because it goes, I can't believe it. Dr. Matlock is already calling and asking for the check. You see Dr. Matlock being invoked a few times here. I'm like, what is that code for?
17:38 Scaachi Koul? I don't know what that's about. But the sexier ones are, miss you babe, makeup sex? Question mark? Tonight was fantastic, really.
17:48 Sarah Hagi? I mean, you have to keep it relative to the person. He's old. This is very sensual for him.
18:00 Scaachi Koul? Yeah. The thing that I remember the most from these screenshots when they went public is that all of the sexy photos from this woman are her wearing jeans.
18:11 Sarah Hagi? Skinny jeans and a T-shirt.
18:13 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, that's X-rated.
18:16 Sarah Hagi? And according to a later court filing, Tom showered the justice with gifts during the course of their four-year-long affair. Among those gifts? $300,000 to help buy her a beachfront vacation property in Santa Monica. The money wasn't wired from Tom's personal bank account, though. It was wired from a separate account containing settlement money owed to Tom's clients, victims like Joseph, who had suffered horrible tragedies and looked to Tom to make things right. The woman Tom had an affair with says she didn't know that the money she received from him actually belonged to his clients. She has since returned the gifts. Erica also denies having any knowledge
19:01 Sarah Hagi? of Tom's financial fraud. But it's clear the dynamics in her and Tom's relationship has shifted. When they first met, Tom was a hotshot lawyer and Erica was a waitress-turned-housewife. Now, more than two decades later, Tom's reputation is on the rocks and his bank accounts are empty.
19:22 Speaker 09 Erica's the one with earning power. She's a bona fide pop star and a reality TV sensation. But now that Erica and Tom are tabloid news, one of Tom's former associates knows it's time to strike. He's ready to get payback for himself and his clients.
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20:14 Speaker 09 Ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what journalist Tristan Redmond always believed. Sure, odd things happen in his childhood bedroom, but ultimately, he shrugged them off. Until he discovered that he wasn't alone, that everyone who lived thereafter him also had bizarre experiences they couldn't explain. And it gets even weirder. It just so happens that his wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door. Is this ghost somehow connected to her murder? He decides to go where no son-in-law should, digging up a cold case and asking questions that nobody wants answered. Like, could his wife's great-grandfather have gotten away with the perfect crime? This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence,
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21:17 Sarah Hagi? When Jay Edelson hears the news about Erica filing for divorce, his stomach drops. Jay is a Chicago lawyer who met with Tom at Morton's Steakhouse. About 10 months earlier, Jay's firm and Tom's firm reached a series of huge settlements on behalf of their clients. They'd partnered to represent some of the families of victims of a horrific plane crash, a Lion Air flight that killed 189 people. The plane was manufactured by Boeing, and it turns out it had a malfunctioning control system. Lawyers clamored to represent the victims, but one lawyer stood out among the rest: Tom.
22:01 Sarah Hagi? He promised the families he'd get them the biggest possible payout. And with his reputation, why wouldn't they believe him? After the settlements to the victims were finalized, Boeing transferred millions of dollars into a Girardi Keys trust account. Girardi Keys was responsible for distributing the funds to the families of the victims and to Jay's firm. But Jay hasn't been able to get a clear answer from anyone at Girardi Keys about whether the clients have actually gotten their money. Jay's also been hounding Girardi Keys about the $2.5 million that's owed to his firm. When he hears about Erica filing for divorce, he's suspicious. Here's what Jay said in our interview.
22:43 Speaker 02 So at that point, my take, being the cynical person I am, was that the money was gone, and that's why she was filing for divorce.
22:54 Sarah Hagi? Jay files a motion in the Lion Air case asking the judge to look into the $2 million of missing settlement money. The judge takes this accusation really seriously. It helps that the lawsuit was filed in Illinois, far away from Tom's influence in California. The judge orders both Jay and Tom to appear in court. Jay alleges that Tom has been taking settlement money from new Girardi Keys clients to pay off old ones who are owed money, a classic Ponzi scheme. Jay also alleges that Girardi Keys had been using client settlement money to pay its bills, with Tom taking millions for himself.
23:35 Sarah Hagi? Jay's accusing Tom of embezzlement, which is a disparable offense. And when it's Tom's turn to defend himself, there's crickets. According to his lawyers, Tom, who is now in his early 80s, has issues of mental competence and has been unable to help them understand where the money went. The judge is furious. He immediately freezes Tom's assets. Then the judge refers the case to the US Attorney's Office for criminal investigation. So now the DOJ is sniffing around Tom's mess, too. And it turns out Jay isn't the only one suspicious about Erica's sudden divorce announcement.
24:18 Sarah Hagi? Three days after the judge freezes Tom's assets, the LA Times releases a 4,000-word expose that outlines bombshell allegations against Tom over the course of decades. The day after the story is published, Tom's longtime partner, Robert Kies, files a petition forcing their firm into bankruptcy. The firm is officially shut down. We reached out to Robert for comment, and he declined to talk to us. After decades of spearheading big cases, swaying top politicians, and even getting the Hollywood treatment, it looks like Tom's winning streak is finally over. And soon, the State Bar of California,
25:02 Sarah Hagi? the very group he worked so hard to keep under his thumb, will turn on him, too.
25:13 Sarah Hagi? In February 2021, about two months after his firm files for bankruptcy, Tom is placed under the temporary conservatorship of his younger brother, Robert. Robert had told the judge that Tom wasn't capable of making rational decisions about his finances. And his lawyers claim that when Tom was asked about his money, his responses were factually impossible. About a week after the judge grants a temporary conservatorship, Tom's Pasadena mansion is robbed while he's at home. When Erica recounts the robbery to Kyle on The Real Housewives, the story is convoluted and to some people unbelievable. Here's what she said.
25:56 Speaker 08 Tom's house was broken into and he confronted the burglar and then had to go have eye surgery. And then my son had to go over and help. And then my son, he rolled his car five times on the way home. Yeah, I'm under a lot of stress. Wait, what?
26:09 Sarah Hagi? She continues and goes, "I got a call at 3:00 in the morning, but didn't get it until 6:00 from the Pasadena Police Department that Tom's home had been broken into. He confronted the burglar and then he had to go to the hospital and have some sort of surgery. I don't even really know." Sashi, this is such an iconic moment in Housewives history. I have this on a pillow that my former coworkers got for me as a housewarming gift. And people are like, "Why does that... Who's Tom? And why was his house broken into?" And I'm like, "Tom's house is broken into and he confronted the burglar." And then he had to go have eye surgery. My son had to go over and help him. And my son rolled his car five times on the way home. Yeah, I'm under a lot of stress.
26:53 Sarah Hagi? I fucking cannot... I think people have actually under-indexed how elemental this quote is to the Housewives universe. It changed everything. There is a "before" her son rolled over his car five times on the way home because she's under a lot of stress. And then after that, there's only two timelines. Also, as the story continues and it's mentioned throughout the season, someone's like, "Yeah, she said it was like snowing in Pasadena." And so the car flipped over or something. And no one can quite grasp the story. But also, it's just like her delivery, how she says it without pausing for a breath. As you called it, her zipper voice.
27:37 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, she's using full zipper voice. Rehearsed zipper voice. Well, shortly after the robbery, Tom moves into a care facility. A forensic psychiatrist examines Tom and diagnoses him with Alzheimer's. He says that Tom experiences delusions and disorganized thinking. But there are suspicions around Tom's diagnosis, including from one of the organizations he used to be the most chummy with, the California State Bar. They allege that Tom's dementia diagnosis is an attempt to avoid accountability, and they file a complaint against him in March 2021. To make their case, they point to the public appearances that Tom made just two months
28:21 Sarah Hagi? before he was placed under conservatorship. One of the appearances was a 90-minute-long panel where he delivered advice on how to conduct a jury trial. About nine months later, in December 2021, the Chicago judge overseeing the plane crash case holds a hearing. He calls Tom's behavior unconscionable. Satya, can you read some more of what the judge said at the hearing?
28:45 Scaachi Koul? Yes. The judge said, "It's an embarrassment to the whole legal community that people in Indonesia are being ripped off by someone who is acting like a two-bit crook. I'm not going to restrain myself on this. This is an embarrassment."
28:57 Sarah Hagi? Oh, judges don't like it when judges look bad in public. No, they don't. And also, it's like, these are people seeking justice for something that is such a clear-cut case of negligence, and they can't even get their money.
29:13 Scaachi Koul? Yeah.
29:14 Sarah Hagi? So, safe to say that Tom's legacy is now in ruins. The fallout has taken out his firm and thrown former associates into question. That includes his wife, Erica, especially when she doubled down on her extravagant public image.
29:34 Sarah Hagi? The next month, Erica is with some of her Real Housewives castmates in Aspen for a glamorous ski getaway. It's January 2022, and she's filming for season 12 of the show. She pops into Ojir, a ski shop where a snowsuit with Swarovski crystals goes for an easy breezy 8K. Erica's wearing sporty reflective sunglasses, a giant fluffy fur coat, and matching boots. And she's accessorizing with some huge diamond stud earrings that Tom bought her in 2007. At that time, they had a retail value of $750,000. But Erica now says they're worth more than $1 million.
30:17 Sarah Hagi? These earrings become a flashpoint, both on the show and off. Some see them as a symbol of Erica's ambivalence towards the clients Tom stole money from. In bankruptcy filings, Erica says they were a gift, and she didn't know that Tom potentially paid for them with stolen money. Many of her fellow housewives feel like she should turn them over to Tom's bankruptcy trustee, not as an admission of guilt, but as an act of compassion. But one night on the Aspen trip, during a drunken fight, Erica says that she doubts the victim's stories. Her castmates look on in horror. Keep in mind, half of them have also just taken edibles. This was, thank God, captured for the show.
31:03 Speaker 08 Just because someone alleges that you did [BLEEP], you're gonna throw your hands up and say, "I did, oh my God, I feel so bad. People are thinking I'm terrible." Hold on a [BLEEP] minute. That's one side of the story. Let's tell the other [BLEEP] side. I don't give a [BLEEP] about anybody else but me.
31:18 Sarah Hagi? And you know what? This wasn't the first time Erica showed questionable judgment. In May of 2021, she posted a caricature of herself burning at the stake on Instagram. She captioned it "scapegoat." Her earrings spell out the words "widows and orphans." It's a reference to the accusations that she and Tom have stolen from widows and orphans in the plane crash.
31:42 Scaachi Koul? Um, this is so embarrassing. If I ever post anything that's even remotely close to this, are you going to stop me from being myself? That's what I need to know.
31:51 Sarah Hagi? If you posted something even close to this, you'd be too far gone. I would give up on you.
31:58 Scaachi Koul? Oh, okay.
32:00 Sarah Hagi? Promising. And about three months later, Erica sued by a bankruptcy trustee. They're seeking to recoup some of the money they loaned to Girardi Keys, which then ended up in their account for EJ Global, the company funding Erica Jane's pop star career. The complaint alleges that Erica's allowance of $175,000 per month was paid by the law firm and that Erica had her own Girardi Keys credit card. Sachi, can you read this excerpt from the complaint?
32:32 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, it says, "Erica directed all of her personal vendors to be paid by the law firm. Only Erica knew that her entire singing, acting, bling, brand, glam squad, and other Erica-only expenses were completely funded by Girardi Keys." Damn.
32:49 Sarah Hagi? Erica's refusal to back away from her fabulous public image has put a target on her back. The court of law and public opinion are about to come for her with full force.
33:04 Sarah Hagi? In July 2022, about a year after Erica posted that caricature of herself on Instagram, she steps off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport. She's returning from a camera-free vacation in Hawaii with two of her Real Housewives castmates. And after everything that's been going on, she probably needed that vacation. A month earlier, a court demanded that she turn over the diamond earrings she'd been hanging on to. Now she's dressed down in a white sweat suit and sneakers. As she walks through baggage claim, she's approached by an unassuming woman carrying a stack of papers. The woman tells Erica that she needs to give her these documents.
33:46 Sarah Hagi? Erica is being served, and this is all captured by paparazzi. Erica, EJ Global, and two former Girardi Keys attorneys are named in the new complaint filed by Jay's firm. It accuses Girardi of embezzling money that should have gone to his clients, and it alleges that Girardi Keys was, quote, "the largest criminal racketeering enterprise in the history of plaintiff's law." The suit alleges that Erica knowingly used settlement money to prop up a lifestyle made for reality TV. It also claims that EJ Global was set up to funnel money from Girardi Keys directly to Erica, and that Erica's public image was a front, helping sell the idea
34:30 Sarah Hagi? that Girardi Keys was successful when it was struggling all along. Things only get worse for Erica from there. About two months later, in September 2022, lots of her and Tom stuff is auctioned off to raise money for Girardi Keys' victims. The items for sale include a Chagall painting, a bronze bust of Tom himself, and an Aaron Brockovich poster signed by Julia Roberts. One of the strangest items is a rare holographic Charizard Pokémon card that was found in a storage room in the mansion's basement. One of the auctions brings in $232,000, and the earrings are sold to the
35:14 Sarah Hagi? wife of the bankruptcy trustee for $250,000, which really pisses Erica off. Lawsuits are coming for Erica from all angles. Tom has wronged so many people, and they're looking for answers. And for Jay Edelson, suing Erica is just one part of a grand plan to set things right in the wake of Tom's massive alleged fraud.
35:46 Speaker 09 Journalist Tristan Redman goes where no son-in-law should ever go. Deep into his wife's family history, digging up the cold case of who murdered her great-grandmother. Because, I should mention, he thinks the murderer might actually be the beloved family patriarch. For the best binge-watch series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
36:06 Speaker 12 Hey, I'm Cassie DePecce, the host of Against the Odds from Audible Originals. In each episode, we share thrilling true stories of survival, putting you in the shoes of the people who lived to tell the tale. In our latest series, we track the story of Hugh Glass, the real-life revenant that inspired the 2015 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 1823, Glass was brutally mauled by a grizzly bear in present-day South Dakota and left for dead. His survival depended on trekking through 350 miles of wilderness alone with grave injuries. But he was driven by his thirst for revenge. Follow Against the Odds wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Against the Odds early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
36:59 Sarah Hagi? Sachi, I want to show you something. It is a music video for a song called "The Rebellion."
37:08 Sarah Hagi? This video is eight minutes long, and it's released in February 2023, about five months after Erika and Tom's belongings are auctioned off. The video features look-alike actors playing Tom and some Girardi case attorneys, and one who supposedly looks like Erika.
37:30 Sarah Hagi? That guy rapping is Ari Sharg, a lawyer at Jay Edelson's firm. He's the person who wrote and performed the song. Let's hear one specific clip to really get a sense of the lyrics.
37:49 Sarah Hagi? And other lyrics include, and I'm not going to rap this, "Despicably, the victims were defrauded by decorated leaders so horrifically. EPC built differently. Not a single legal emcee can spit half as real as me." EPC, by the way, are the initials of Jay's firm.
38:08 Scaachi Koul? Don't you think this sounds like a Lin-Manuel Miranda rap song? It sounds like Hamilton.
38:13 Sarah Hagi? That is actually 100% true. And this guy's only problem is that he can't rap like Hamilton.
38:21 Scaachi Koul? That is actually the only problem.
38:24 Sarah Hagi? The video was produced with the help of an LA production company that has worked on music videos for Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar, and DaBaby. Jay told us that he considers the music video, which was put together and paid for by his law firm, to be a form of legal advocacy.
38:41 Speaker 02 So this was a way where we felt we could speak directly to the public. Anytime you're dealing with legal issues, you can lose people in the weeds of it.
38:53 Sarah Hagi? The music video is a chance for Jay to gloat, and honestly, he has a reason to. Roughly a week earlier, Tom was federally indicted. In California, he was charged with wire fraud and accused of embezzling more than $15 million from his clients. And in Illinois, he was hit with eight counts of wire fraud and four counts of contempt of court. Jay is probably taking a victory lap right about now. And, thanks to his firm, some of Tom's victims have reason to celebrate, too. About a year earlier, Jay got sick of waiting for Tom to pay out the victims in the case against Boeing. So he decided to pay some of them the millions they were owed using money from his own firm. Jay's firm hasn't been paid by Tom's firm yet either,
39:38 Sarah Hagi? but the arrangement allowed Jay to sue Tom on the victims' behalf without dragging them along. The victims of the plane crash can finally move on. But the fight over Tom's legal accountability and Erica's is just gearing up.
39:55 Sarah Hagi? In March 2023, Tom Girardi appears on a video screen wearing a light gray sport jacket. He's checking in remotely to a court hearing. He's here to plead not guilty against the charges that he defrauded victims in the Boeing case. The firm's head of accounting is indicted, too, as is Tom's son-in-law. He also worked on the case and was named on the bank account containing settlement money. Tom doesn't speak other than to agree to hold the hearing over video. And for someone who spent decades at the top of the legal profession, Tom's now represented by a court-appointed attorney. His lawyer claims that Tom suffers from health issues that prevent him from understanding the court proceeding. Tom's brother, Robert,
40:38 Sarah Hagi? says Tom receives $3,000 per month in social security and has no other income. Tom is released into Robert's custody on a $250,000 bond. But after years of back and forth, first with Tom, then with bankruptcy court, in April, a judge finally approved an $11.7 million payment to Joseph and his family.
41:04 Sarah Hagi? Two months later, in June 2023, there's a huge update. A government-appointed expert says Tom is competent enough to stand trial in the federal case in Illinois. Around the same time, the California State Bar, inspired by Tom's case, passes a rule requiring attorneys to report misconduct by their peers.
41:25 Scaachi Koul? I can't believe they didn't have a rule for that until now.
41:29 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, and they also created new rules mandating that attorneys register and report their clients' trust accounts to the state bar. Since it went into effect about a year ago, more than 1,600 attorneys have been suspended for violating the rules.
41:44 Scaachi Koul? How depressing.
41:45 Sarah Hagi? Meanwhile, Erica is thriving. She's still a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills and has been spotted filming for the next season. In July 2023, she won an appeal over the decision to auction off her diamond earrings. The court sided with her, saying the earrings never should have been given to the bankruptcy trustee in the first place. Also, it seems like Erica is trying to make amends with Tom's victims. About a week before she won the appeal, she was spotted paying a visit to an L.A. restaurant co-owned by Joseph Ruggomez's mother, Kathy. She reportedly held a meeting with Kathy and some of Tom's other alleged victims. And even without Tom's financial support, she hasn't given up on her pop star dreams.
42:29 Sarah Hagi? She's currently preparing for her Las Vegas residency, Bet It All on Blonde, which starts in late August 2023. Sachi, we know a lot about The Real Housewives, especially Beverly Hills.
42:43 Scaachi Koul? Yeah.
42:44 Sarah Hagi? But I do feel like you learned a lot more with these Tom Girardi episodes.
42:47 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, I mean, I thought I knew the depth of it, but I don't think I really understood it. I think having it laid out like this has really changed my understanding.
42:57 Sarah Hagi? Yes.
42:58 Scaachi Koul? I think it's also changed my understanding of like what Erica knew and when she knew it. I can see how she just sort of said to herself over and over again. He's gonna take care of me. But that's not a justifiable excuse indefinitely. And, and, you know, widows and orphans are kind of where you don't have empathy for that argument anymore. And she has acted so poorly in public that like, her hu- her ex-husband is the real scammer.
43:26 Sarah Hagi? Of course.
43:26 Scaachi Koul? Tom Girardi is the problem. But she has behaved so poorly in the public discourse that people are associating her even more with what he did.
43:35 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, I do believe she was a victim to Tom's behavior in some ways, but it's not on par with people who put their trust in this person, waiting for millions of dollars, and then seeing information that your money was being funneled into his wife's vanity pop star career.
43:54 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, I mean, I would be embarrassed. I hope she's embarrassed. She must be. That must be why she old zipper voice is acting a fool.
44:02 Sarah Hagi? That's why her voice went down so many-
44:03 Scaachi Koul? So many octaves, yeah.
44:05 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, it's because she's, it's, it's a shame-based response.
44:08 Scaachi Koul? Nobody, nobody believes somebody feels bad when their voice is up here. You only believe it when it's down here and this is how they're talking.
44:16 Sarah Hagi? So, do you think Tom would have faced any real consequences if it wasn't for Erica being on the show?
44:22 Scaachi Koul? I don't think so.
44:23 Sarah Hagi? You really?
44:24 Scaachi Koul? I don't think so. I think it needed to be expedited in this way. Maybe it would have come up, but he's an old man. How long would that have taken, right? I don't, I think like, the show is partly why I think there was increased investigation into her and then also her husband. If she had not been on that show, I don't think there would have been as much attention paid to how much money he had and the fact that this money wasn't actually appearing in anybody else's bank accounts.
44:50 Sarah Hagi? It is also shit like this that gives conspiracy theorists a huge leg up, being like, nothing matters. Everything is being controlled by money and these lizard people. And you know what? Tom was able to do whatever he wanted with his influence over all these people, and we had no say in that.
45:11 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, this is a really sad story about how long money can talk.
45:14 Sarah Hagi? Oh, yeah. Everything is just a game of The Sims or Civilization to these people.
45:22 Scaachi Koul? So, are you still listening to Erica Jane's albums on repeat as you were before all of this happened?
45:28 Sarah Hagi? Hmm, I don't know, man. I can't really separate the art from the artists with this one. It's, it's really hard for me now to listen to expensive-
45:37 Scaachi Koul? And feel empowered by it? Yeah, it's tough. Context changes art. And that's really what we're here to talk about.
45:50 Scaachi Koul? Follow Scamfluencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free by joining Audible.
46:02 Sarah Hagi? This is The Power Broker and the Pop Star, Part Two. I'm Sarah Haggy.
46:07 Scaachi Koul? And I'm Sachi Cole. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were ABC News Original's "Housewife and the Hustler", MSNBC's "American Greed", Tom D'Arati sued by Indonesia's Lion Air crash families over claims US lawyer embezzled millions of their settlement funds in ABC News Australia, written by Ann Barker and Archikio Giuliano, Brandon Lowry's reporting for Law360, and the investigative work of the Los Angeles Times reporters Harriet Ryan and Matt Hamilton.
46:36 Sarah Hagi? Jessica Ford wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Haggy. Our senior producer is Jen Swan. Our producer is John Reed. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peery. Our story editor and producer is Sarah Enni. Eric Thurm is our story editor. Sound design is by Sam Ada. Fact checking by Will Tablin. Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Fries on Sync. Our coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock. Our managing producer is Matt Gant, and our senior managing producer is Ryan Lor. Kate Young and Olivia Richard are our series producers.
47:20 Sarah Hagi? Our senior story editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Our senior producer is Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Janine Cornelo, Stephanie Jens, Jenny Lauer Beckman, and Marshall Louie for Wondery.
47:43 Speaker 13 You stepped out for your morning jog. Except it's not your usual morning jog. You started listening to an epic sci-fi book on Audible. Thirty chapters later, you've accidentally run a half marathon. You've lost track of how far you've run, somewhere just past the city limits. You can't stop, you have to find out what happens next. Then it's over. The universe seems bigger. You feel different. You feel... like you have no idea where you are. Audible: Stories That Speak to You.
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