i ran into tom girardi and he called me joe. he's definitely cooked
a day inside the fallen plaintiff lawyer's competency hearing, which was pretty dumb.
I decided to check out day one of Tom Girardi’s competency hearing. And I gotta say it was pretty pathetic.
I know a lot of people think Girardi is faking his dementia, but it’s pretty obvious things aren’t going well. I mean he rolled up to federal court in slippers, and was so spooked he called out for his dead mother. He was like Joaquin Phoenix in Beau is Afraid. The guy never knows where he is going, and disaster is around every corner. These days Girardi shits on towels inside his nursing home and carries around a stack of papers because he still thinks he’s practicing law. He waits around for his driver, who will never come to take him to Morten’s Steakhouse. And he called me Joe, which is not my name.
The crowd, which couldn’t wait to flame this geriatric influencer in person, was bigger than anything I had seen for a court hearing. Reality t.v. podcasters, streamers, journalists, documentarians, paparazzi and all sorts of lawyers have all been keeping busy over the past 2.5 years since it came out that Girardi stole from clients. ABC news had drones flying around the downtown federal courthouse. Celebrity feminist discrimination attorney Gloria Allred sat in the gallery, as did members of the IRS. At a local lunch spot, former Girardi employee Kimberly Archie held court for producers shooting a followup to Hulu’s “The Housewife and the Hustler.”
I passed by the 84-year-old Girardi while walking out of Judge Josephine Stanton’s 8th floor courtroom. I didn’t expect his handlers to let him roam around in the wild like that, but there he was, rocking a massive suit and giving legal advice to court marshals and small children. I said, “Hi Tom,” and without hesitation he flashed a huge smile at me and said, “Hey Joe!” It was weird. He got the J part right, so did that mean he sort of remembered me? If it was all an act, then wouldn’t he just call me something way off base, like Alvin? To be fair, he probably wouldn’t remember my name even if I had brought him 25 slam dunk slip and fall cases. He said “Joe” with such unhinged confidence that he either deserves an Oscar or he’s really cooked. I think he is cooked. By calling me “Joe,” he was regressing back to his golden days, when every man was pretty much named Joe and sexual assault was still legal. There are things you can’t fake about dementia. You can see it in the eyes.
So I don’t think Girardi understand what’s going on in this case against him. This isn’t about if he had dementia when he stole $18 million dollars from clients (the allegations go back 13 years), but whether Girardi right now understands and can consult with his lawyers about the wire fraud charges against him. And federal prosecutors are saying that Girardi is faking his dementia in order to be declared unfit to stand trial. They called two witnesses on their first day, a neuropsychologist and a neurologist. The neuropsychologist, Diana Goldstein, said Girardi doesn’t have dementia but “mild cognitive impairment,” and that he’s exaggerating things.
“He was tracking. He was never off point,” said Goldstein, commenting on the hours she spent examining Girardi. “He was clearly able to make new memories and remember them.”
The neuropsychologist said Girardi knew Biden was president, and that Covid impacted his law firm Girardi Keese. Girardi also denied having any memory of his third wife, reality t.v. person Erika Jayne. But then he called her during the examination and asked Erika if she was going to Spain. According to an episode of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she did go to Spain.
The neuropsychologist also said Girardi did not directly address questions about the criminal case against him, instead answering it hypothetically, as a sly lawyer would. It’s like somewhere in there, the neuron’s comprising of Girardi the successful legal mind were still firing. He instead blamed his former Chief Financial Officer Chris Kamone, who is also facing criminal charges for stealing money from the families of victims in the 2018 Lionair crash. The way the government saw it, this was evidence of Girardi doing well.
But there were things these witnesses did not mention. Retired Skadden Arps lawyer Richard Marmaro, who has known Girardi for 20 years, told the neuropsychologist, "I was 100 percent certain that he lost it.”
“That didn’t make it into your summary,” said Girardi’s public defender Craig Harbaugh.
The neuropsych doc just responded with, “okay.”
Harbaugh’s argument was basically that Girardi was too prideful and skilled at hiding his dementia.
A memory care manager at Girardi’s nursing home told the neurologist she believed Girardi wasn’t faking it, another detail that was omitted by the government’s witness. She said Girardi has a stack of papers and still thinks he’s working on cases even though Girardi’s law firm went bankrupt over 2 years ago and he’s been disbarred. It’s unclear if the papers are actual legal documents. I heard they’re just his old press clippings.
Girardi didn’t speak or show any reaction to witness testimony. Occasionally, he would look out to the gallery with sort of an angry look on his face. Maybe he saw Erika, Harriet Ryan of the LA Times, or the Grim Reaper himself.
The government’s second witness, a regular neurologist, said Girardi either has “mild cognitive impairment” or “mild to moderate dementia.”
“It’s possible he could have progressed to mild dementia stage currently,” said the neurologist, Adam Darby, who doesn’t believe one could have moderate dementia and be lying.
So even both of the government’s witnesses so far said Girardi has at least some sort of impairment.
My old Daily Journal co-worker Meghann Cuniff, who does independent reporting over at Legal Affairs and Trials with Meghann Cuniff, was also pretty over it.
“It’s so obvious that even if Girardi is found competent, the odds of there actually being a trial seem pretty slim, and this all just seems like a big show and the USA trying to make up for the fact that this guy operated unchecked in LA for decades,” she told me.
Yea. Now that public opinion has turned against Girardi, prosecutors are safely riding a wave of justice with a ton of media attention. They didn’t even directly examine their witnesses, instead submitting their reports to the judge.
After testimony ended for the day, the media waited close to an hour for Girardi to exit. I saw one reporter Google “Erin Brokovich.” If he still had his connections, Girardi could have escaped out the back the way judges do, but it didn’t happen. When Girardi finally appeared outside, he was really happy to see us. And together, we all slowly escorted him to his car, our cell phones and cameras like guns holding him hostage. The family of clients Girardi stole from were also there looking on, but they seemed to get no satisfaction from the spectacle. They'll probably never get any money back. I asked Tom if he wanted to go to Stoney Point. There were a lot of questions, but no answers.
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If I recall correctly, Tom had a wonderful recovery and is not incompetent any more. Jan 5, 2024 A federal district judge who found Tom Girardi competent to stand trial concluded that his lawyers' arguments were "wholly lacking in credibility . . . "
From the start, Tom reminded me of Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, the powerful New York mob boss who avoided prison for decades by wandering Greenwich Village’s streets in a ratty bathrobe and slippers . . ." (LA Times December 20, 2005) Dementia is not an instant onset disease right after a Federal judge reported you the federal authorities and California Chief Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye can't protect you any more. She's also was the head of the State Bar and had control who gets disbarred and disciplined. With over 100 state bar complaints agst Girardi during her tenure, reports have it that she never found he had done anything wrong. Of course, as long as Tom was allegedly incompetent, he could not be deposed and asked to name the judges whom he had bribed.