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Former Girardi Firm CFO Sentenced to 10 Years for Fraud
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Former Chief Financial Officer Christopher Kamon of the now-defunct law firm Girardi|Keese, co-founded by disbarred personal injury attorney Tom Girardi, was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for enabling the embezzlement of millions of dollars from clients and secretly taking money from the organization itself.
U.S. District Court Judge Josephine L. Staton of the Central District of California sentenced Kamon following his October guilty plea to two counts of wire fraud, remarking at Friday’s hearing that the accountant helped build a “web of deceit and manipulation” at the firm. Staton also ordered Kamon to pay $8.9 million in restitution.
Kamon, who previously owned residences in Palos Verdes and Encino, was arrested in November 2022 at the Baltimore International Airport after returning from his then-home in the Bahamas.
In a memorandum, filed by Pasadena-based criminal defense attorney Michael V. Severo, Kamon agreed that the amount of loss at issue, for purposes of federal sentencing guidelines, is somewhere between $3.5 million and $25 million.
He faced a maximum sentence of 40 years on the charges.
Defrauded Clients
From 2004 until December 2020, Kamon was the head of the accounting department at Girardi|Keese, then located in downtown Los Angeles. According to prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Kamon worked closely with Girardi to defraud clients out of settlement funds, using the stolen money for payroll and personal expenditures.
Kamon was specifically charged with wire fraud relating to a $53 million settlement that Girardi|Keese attorneys negotiated for client Joseph Ruigomez, who suffered devastating burns across most of his body during a 2010 pipeline explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area. The settlement was allegedly negotiated without prior approval by the client, who was told that the case was resolved for approximately $7 million.
Per the terms of the agreement, $25 million was invested into an annuity, and the remaining $28 million was wired into a Girardi|Keese trust account in January 2013. Kamon purportedly aided Girardi in misappropriating millions to cover firm expenses, including making payments to other clients whose own settlement funds had previously been depleted.
They eventually sent Ruigomez a $2.5 million check based on money collected on behalf of other clients.
Personal Enrichment
In a separate criminal case, Kamon admitted to running a years-long scheme in which he embezzled Girardi|Keese funds for his own enrichment. From at least 2013 to December 2020, Kamon had co-conspirators issue fraudulent invoices to the firm for goods and services never provided.
In fact, the payments on the invoices would be applied to personal matters, including construction projects on his Palos Verdes and Encino homes.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California on Friday commented:
“For nearly 20 years, Kamon enabled Girardi’s scheme to defraud vulnerable clients of the law firm. Ironically, it was Kamon’s own lies that accelerated the law firm’s demise. We hope the sentence imposed today brings a measure of justice to his victims.”
Girardi Sentencing Outstanding
Girardi was found guilty last August of engaging in a massive decade-long Ponzi scheme in which he misappropriated at least $15 million in client settlement funds. Staton vacated a December sentencing hearing in favor of holding a status conference to determine the extent of the 85-year-old defendant’s cognitive impairment.
Staton said she will determine “whether defendant should be committed to a suitable facility in lieu of imprisonment” once all the information about his health is revealed.
Jurors convicted Girardi of four counts of wire fraud for stealing from injured clients and spending the money on private jets, expensive club memberships, and in support of his now-estranged wife Erika Jayne, who starred in the reality show “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
Kamon was originally charged together with Girardi, but their cases were separated after it became clear that Girardi intended to blame Kamon for the scheme.
Girardi and Kamon face federal fraud charges in Chicago relating to the misappropriation of settlement monies intended for the widows and orphans of victims of a Boeing 737-Max crash in Indonesia. Trial in that case is scheduled for July 14.
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