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Criminal Justice

Former Girardi Keese CFO ordered to pay over $8.9M in restitution, serve prison time for embezzlement

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 15, 2025, 11:32 am CDT

The former chief financial officer for the now-defunct law firm Girardi Keese was sentenced Friday to 121 months in federal prison for embezzling money from the firm and its clients.

Christopher Kazuo Kamon, 51, was also ordered to pay more than $8.9 million in restitution, according to a April 11 press release. He had pleaded guilty in October 2024 to two counts of wire fraud in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton of the Central District of California said during the sentencing hearing that Kamon helped build a “web of deceit and manipulation.” Kamon had worked closely with former name partner Tom Girardi, who was convicted in August 2024 on four counts of wire fraud for or stealing $15 million from four clients over the course of a decade.

Girardi, who has been disbarred, was famous for his legal team’s portrayal in the film Erin Brockovich and for his marriage to Erika Girardi, who has appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reality TV show.

Law360, Law.com and Reuters are among the publications with coverage of Kamon’s sentence.

During the hearing, Staton described the relationship between Kamon and Girardi as “symbiotic,” according to Law.com.

According to Law.com, “Staton’s voice shook slightly as she described, in detail, the disastrous financial situations of two of Girardi’s injured clients: a family who, as a result of Girardi’s main fraud scheme, was unable to purchase a house large enough to house the equipment necessary to care for their quadriplegic child and a widowed client who—after being assured by the firm that her embezzled settlement would pay off her house—was later forced to take out a home equity loan and sell it.”

Kamon is also facing federal charges in Illinois for allegedly stealing money from relatives of air crash victims. Kamon’s lawyer, Michael Severo, told Law360 that a nearly finalized plea deal would allow Kamon to serve his sentence in the Illinois case concurrently with the California sentence.

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Criminal Justice

Former CFO at Tom Girardi’s law firm reaches plea deal, agrees to $3.1M forfeiture

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 10, 2024, 9:18 am CDT

The former chief financial officer at disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi’s law firm has reached a deal to plead guilty to two counts of wire fraud that caused losses of at least $3.5 million.

Former CFO Christopher K. Kamon agreed to plead guilty, to forfeit $3.1 million and to pay restitution, report Law360 and the Los Angeles Times.

The agreement was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The plea deal follows Girardi’s August conviction for stealing $15 million from four personal injury clients at his now-collapsed firm, Girardi Keese, over the course of a decade.

Girardi, 85, was famous for his legal team’s portrayal in the film Erin Brockovich and for his marriage to Erika Girardi, who has appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reality TV show. He is now living in an assisted living facility and has a dementia diagnosis. His lawyers are seeking to overturn the conviction for an alleged inability to understand trial proceedings, Law.com reports.

Kamon acknowledges that he worked with Girardi to defraud clients, and that he participated in a “side fraud” scheme involving fraudulent invoices.

A factual statement says Girardi typically called Kamon each morning and asked how much money was in the firm’s bank accounts, including its client trust accounts. When operating accounts were low, Girardi allegedly instructed Kamon to move money out of client trust accounts and label them as attorney fees, even when attorney fees had already been paid.

“This was a common practice at Girardi Keese of which other senior lawyers in the firm were aware,” the statement of facts said.

Sometimes settlement funds belonging to current clients in trust accounts were used to pay other clients whose settlement funds had been stolen, according to the statement of facts.

Kamon and federal prosecutors in Los Angeles disagreed on the amount of the loss. Kamon said the amount is at least $3.5 million and no more than $9.5 million. Prosecutors reserved the right to argue that the amount ranged from more than $9.5 million to less than $25 million.

Kamon did not agree to a particular prison sentence. Money collected from Kamon in the bankruptcy proceedings for Girardi Keese would be credited toward the forfeiture amount.

The potential maximum prison sentence is 40 years. The offenses also carry a potential fine equal to twice the gain or losses resulting from the offenses or the amount of $500,000, whichever is greater.

Kamon, Girardi and a third lawyer are facing separate charges in Chicago for allegedly stealing settlement money from five relatives of victims killed in an October 2018 plane crash.

The former longtime CFO of the Trump Organization, himself already convicted of a slew of financial crimes, has now admitted to perjuring himself as New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) undertook a massive civil fraud probe into former President Donald Trump’s business empire.

Allen Weisselberg appeared in New York Supreme Court to plead guilty to two felonies on Monday morning before Judge Laurie Peterson. Thereafter, the judge set sentencing for April 10.

In New York, first-degree perjury is committed when someone “swears falsely and when his false statement (a) consists of testimony, and (b) is material to the action, proceeding or matter in which it is made.” A class D nonviolent felony, first-degree perjury is punishable by up to 7 years in prison. But between Weisselberg’s decision to plead guilty, his age — 76 — and the reported five-month sentence recommended by prosecutors, the defendant does not appear to face a stiff punishment, as was the case when he was sentenced the first time around and released from Rikers Island early for good behavior.