A lawyer for Erika Jayne from The Real Houseiwves of Beverly Hills claims she was "innocently" gifted a pair of $750,000 earrings by her estranged husband, Tom Girardi. After more than a year later, Erika is still getting grilled about her ex's alleged criminal activity. Erika filed for divorce from Tom in November 2020 after more than 20 years of marriage. The split was a shock at first, but the events that followed led viewers to wonder if Erika's life wasn't as perfect as she portrayed on TV.
In December 2020, a month after Erika filed, Tom was accused of embezzling millions of dollars of client funds for at least 10 years. However, Tom has since claimed through his lawyers that he had no idea what he was doing as he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. As a result of Tom's alleged criminal acts and his diagnosis, Erika was left with a number of lawsuits now aimed at her.
In a court filing exclusively obtained by Page Six, Erika's lawyer is slamming reports that she knew Tom, who wanted bankruptcy case discharged, bought her expensive diamond earrings using funds he stole from his clients. "First, Erika is completely innocent," lawyer Evan Borges admitted in the court documents. "Not even the trustee alleges that Erika knew the source of funds that her wealthy husband used to buy her a gift of earrings 15 years ago (which replaced a prior set of earrings bought years prior to that)." Even though Erika claims she had no idea Tom used client funds to pay for the earrings, she has not sold or transferred the earrings as a sign of "good faith," while the investigation is still ongoing. As of today, the diamond earrings are held in custody with a third party until the final order is announced.
In another filing from January 25, a trustee in Tom's bankruptcy case believes the former lawyer bought the $750,000 diamond earrings in 2007 from M&M Jewelers with money from a client trust account at his previous law firm, Girardi & Keese. The trustee believes Tom concealed the misused client funds by describing the purpose for taking out this chunk of money from the account as a "cost." Attorney Ronald Richards, who was involved in the bankruptcy case, told the news outlet that by "mislabeling these as ‘costs,’ the clients got less money. This was an outright theft of client money." Erika's lawyer then accused the trustee of trying to make the reality star responsible for the wrongdoings of others since Tom is now under conservatorship and is allegedly mentally incompetent. Since October, Erika has been in talks to finally settle her $25 million lawsuits in which Erika is accused of using money from Tom's firm to pay for her lavish lifestyle.
While Tom probably did use client funds to pay for The Real Housewives of Bevely Hills star's $750,000 earrings, Erika likely had no idea. Erika wasn't in his office 24/7, watching Tom's every move. In fact, from Erika's point of view, Tom always shut her out, especially when it came to money.
Source: Page Six