A federal judge of Los Angeles sentenced the former financial director of the law firm of Tom Girardi to 10 years in prison on Friday for his role in theft of millions of dollars in regulation of clients of the lawyer in disgrace.
The judge of the American district court Josephine Staton imposed the mandate after a hearing during which a trustee supervising the bankruptcy of the company accused Christopher Kamon of continuous efforts to hide stolen money, in particular in what she said was recently discovered bank accounts in Hungary and the Bahamas.
“Mr. Kamon added to what Mr. Girard did,” said the trustee Elissa Miller. She spoke to the judge of telephone calls in which she had to tell the former customers of Girardi Keese expecting several million dollars legal regulations that they would only receive $ 750, calling the conversations “just an extract from the horrors of this case”.
Kamon, a former 51 -year -old high -level professor of high -level mathematics, checked bank accounts for Girardi Keese for a decade and a half before the company’s collapse in 2020. During this period, the practice of Boulevard Wilshire worked as a Ponzi type program which declared that the prosecutors said up to $ 100 million for, among others, Luxury, his wife’s musical career, “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” Star Jayne.
After Girardi’s fraud for fraud last year, Kamon concluded an agreement with the prosecutors under which he pleaded guilty of fraud by wire and admitted that he had regularly transferred money from the client trust accounts in the direction of Girardi. In a case cited by Asst. American lawyer Scott Paetty, Kamon withdrew $ 50,000 into settlement funds due to a client, a widow whose husband had been killed in a pleasure accident, allowing the lawyer to pay invoices in two country clubs. In another, he moved $ 128,500 to settlement funds due to a woman injured by a medical device so that Girardi can cover leases on two luxury vehicles.
Kamon also admitted to having launched his own separate program in 2013 – a “cheeky flight with a flight” in prosecutors – to fly in Girardi. Using false sellers and bribes, he diverted more than $ 6.5 million he spent renovation properties he had in Encino and Palos Verdes, as well as gifts and a monthly allowance of $ 20,000 for a woman he met on an escort site.
The way responsibility should be distributed between Girardi and Kamon has been challenged since the fall of Girardi four years ago. After the creditors pushed it to bankruptcy in 2021, financial files emerged showing corporate money, including colonies due to catastrophically injured customers, channeled for a multitude of personal ends: breast implants, schooling costs of the college for the child of an employee, a Santa Monica Condom For the mistress of diameter.
During Girardi’s August trial, his lawyers argued that the 85 -year -old lawyer had debilitating dementia and that Kamon had taken advantage of his condition to fly to customers.
The jurors did not seem to buy the argument, condemning Girardi on four leaders of fraud per thread.
Kamon, for his part, presented himself as a minor participant who followed the instructions of a boss who was a legend in the legal field and a personal hero for him. In a letter to the court, Kamon remembers having received a diagnosis of intestinal cancer only three months after starting as a closed accountant in 2000. Although he was unemployed for a year, Girardi kept him at full wages.
“As far as I’m concerned, I owed him my life,” he wrote. Girardi promoted him at the head of the accounting office in 2004, gave him a used Porsche and paid him well enough to support his financially attached parents, he wrote, adding: “I trusted Mr. Girardi and I thought in him and I did not want to see or believe that he was flying his customers.”
During his condemnation hearing, Kumon, wearing ankle channels and a white combination, apologized several times and told the judge that he wanted her to understand that “I am not a horrible person. I tried to correct this as best I can. ”
Miller, the bankruptcy trustee, challenged his claimed cooperation. She said Kamon had refused to facilitate the sale of a mansion by the water of $ 2.4 million he had in the Bahamas and had not given $ 1 million in Hungarian and Bahamamian banks.
Staton, the judge, said that she had found her excuses “vague” and his assertion that he only followed the instructions of Girardi “a little hollow” since he was the brain of a separate program that personally benefited from him. She said that the fact that he had no previous criminal record was not convincing given the duration of the Girardi Keese program.
“The accused has committed daily fraud for years,” she said. She ordered him to pay a restitution of $ 8.9 million.
Girardi and Kamon are faced with additional federal charges in Chicago for the misappropriation of millions of dollars in colonies for families of airplane victims. Kamon is negotiating a plea agreement, his lawyer, Michael Severo said on Friday.
Girardi has not yet been convicted in the case. Prosecutors are looking for a 14 -year term. His lawyers argued that because of his cognitive decline, he should stay in a nursing home in Orange County rather than being sent to prison. He underwent a medical assessment in the federal butter prison, NC earlier this year and, according to a file of his lawyers this week, experts concluded that he did not need special treatment.
A forensic psychologist and a neuropsychologist who assessed him “determined that not only Mr. Girardi can be imprisoned safely and appropriately in (the federal penitentiary system) … He does not even need, at that time, to be placed in a specialized medical establishment,” wrote lawyers. He must return to court in May.
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