Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne’s estranged husband, Tom Girardi, allegedly cursed at federal prosecutors during his recent mental competency hearing.
Tom, 84, allegedly interrupted the Wednesday, September 13, proceedings by saying or mouthing “f—k you” to one of the prosecutors, according to Courthouse News Service.
The outlet reported that the prosecution suggested Tom’s outburst was proof that he understood what was happening and knew he had “nothing to lose.” The defense, meanwhile, reminded the court that Tom is suffering from moderate dementia.
If Tom is found mentally competent, he faces five counts of wire fraud in Orange County, California, and separate federal charges in Chicago. His legal troubles began in December 2020, when a federal judge froze his assets, claiming that Tom owed millions of dollars to his clients, including the families of those killed in the 2018 Lion Air plane crash in Indonesia.
Two months later, Tom was placed in a conservatorship, with his brother handling his affairs due to short-term memory loss. He was then diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in March 2021.
As Tom dealt with health issues and his split from Erika, 52, who filed for divorce in November 2020 after 20 years of marriage, the lawsuits against him continued to pile up. In March 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported that Tom had been sued more than 100 times.
Tom was ordered to be disbarred in June 2022. That November, the California State Bar published a 50-page open letter acknowledging that Tom should have been disbarred sooner and claiming that he “caused irreparable harm to hundreds of his clients.”
Erika has also been named in several of the lawsuits against her ex, including a suit filed last month by costume merchant Christopher Psaila.
According to court documents obtained by Us Weekly, Christopher, who is the cofounder of Marco Marco, claimed that Erika and Tom weaponized the Secret Service to prosecute him in 2017 in order to acquire a nearly $800,000 refund from American Express.
Christopher alleged that Erika gave him consent to charge her for costumes he designed for her shows, meaning that she and Tom falsely told federal agents that the charges to her credit card were unauthorized. He claimed in his filing that the Secret Service then led an investigation into Jayne’s claims and deliberately ignored facts that would exonerate him. (Us reached out to Erika for comment.)
Lawyer Neama Rahmani, who is not involved in the case, exclusively gave Us his expert opinion on the matter earlier this month, noting that Christopher’s claims could have “very serious” consequences for Erika.
“If it’s indeed true, this is a very big deal,” he said. “This is an [alleged] misuse of our system of justice — and we know how big of a deal that is right now in other, sort of, political arenas. If Tom truly was able to get someone to investigate someone his wife was having a civil dispute [or a] credit card dispute with, this [is] a big, big problem.”
One month before Christopher filed his lawsuit, Erika met with several people who accused Tom of defrauding them.
“I came here with an open heart to listen to what’s going on, hear what happened and figure out how to be a part of how to move forward together in a way that’s beneficial for all victims,” Erika told Page Six of the July meetup at a Paul’s Ice Cream event in Los Angeles.
