restitution Archives - Home Safety Tech Pros

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

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 03:32:04 +0000

Criminal Justice

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

April 15, 2025, 11:32 am CDT

Attorney Tom Girardi of the now-defunct law firm Girardi Keese is pictured outside a Los Angeles courthouse in July 2014. Christopher Kazuo Kamon, the former chief financial officer for the firm, was sentenced Friday to 121 months in federal prison for embezzling money from the firm and its clients. (Photo by Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press)

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.

Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.

Source link

The post Former Girardi Keese CFO ordered to pay over $8.9M in restitution, serve prison time for embezzlement appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Gorsuch dissents in Mrugeshkumar Shah restitution case

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 12:31:16 +0000

Justice Neil Gorsuch poses for an official portrait in the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court building on October 7, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.)

The U.S. Supreme Court denied the appeal of a more than $82 million restitution order imposed on a group of doctors convicted of a massive fraud scheme in Texas, but Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented from his fellow justices’ decision, saying that he would have chosen to review the lower court’s upholding of the restitution sentence.

Forest Park Medical Center was a physician-owned hospital in Dallas that was not part of any insurance company’s network and did not accept payments via Medicare or Medicaid. The practice made money by steering lucrative patients — those that distributed high reimbursements for out-of-network procedures — to its facility with the help of kickbacks paid to referring physicians. Forest Park’s owners were prosecuted and criminally convicted of a $200 million bribery scheme for its practice of illegally incentivizing doctors to perform surgery at the facility with referral kickbacks falsely characterized as “marketing money” or consulting fees.

The practice owners were prosecuted and convicted under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS). Seven of the defendants were sentenced to a combined more than 74 years in prison and ordered to pay a total of $82.9 million in restitution.

Mrugeshkumar Shah, Shawn Mark Henry, Michael Bassem Rimlawi, Douglas Sung Won, Jackson Jacob, and Iris Kathleen Forrest appealed the restitution portion of their sentence. They argued that the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA) does not apply to their conviction because it was not “an offense against property.” Both the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled against them

The defendants did not dispute that their conduct deprived private insurance companies of property by means of fraud or deceit, but they claimed that under the correct analysis, their actual conduct is not what matters. Rather, they said, the court must employ the “categorical approach,” and examine the statutory elements of the crime. Given that no element of the applicable statute involves fraud or deceit, the MVRA does not apply, according to the defendants.

The Fifth Circuit was unconvinced. Writing for the appellate court, Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Priscilla Richman, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that under the MVRA, the manner in which a crime was carried out is what matters for purpose of restitution — not the precise definition of the crime under the prosecuting statute.

“The categorical approach is inappropriate for this [restitution] statute and ‘the [district] court may look to the facts and circumstances of the offense of conviction to determine if the MVRA authorizes a restitution order,”” wrote Richman.

The justices denied certiorari in the case Monday, thereby leaving the Fifth Circuit’s decision standing as the final word on the issue of restitution.

Gorsuch, however, penned a brief dissenting statement in which he expressed, “I have my doubts” about a judge’s ability to legally order restitution in a criminal case based on their own factual findings, without the aid of a jury.

Gorsuch argued that the Sixth Amendment guarantees a trial by jury, and that this means that only a jury is entitled to make a finding on facts with the propensity to increase a defendant’s penalties. According to the justice, the founders agreed.

“And more than a little evidence suggests that, at the time of the founding, juries found the facts needed to justify criminal restitution awards,” Gorsuch wrote.

Gorsuch said that he would have granted review in the case to answer the question of whether the Fifth Circuit handled its analysis properly under applicable precedent, “and the Constitution’s original meaning.”

The justice ended his brief statement with something of a warning: “In the absence of this Court’s review, I can only hope that federal and state courts will continue to consider carefully the Sixth Amendment’s application to criminal restitution orders.”

Source link

The post Gorsuch dissents in Mrugeshkumar Shah restitution case appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Ex-BigLaw partner hit with prison time, $4.2M restitution order in tax case

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 14:47:54 +0000

Criminal Justice

Ex-BigLaw partner hit with prison time, $4.2M restitution order in tax case

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 18, 2024, 9:35 am CDT

A former partner at Husch Blackwell and Dykema Gossett has been sentenced to 16 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay $2.46 million in taxes. (Image from Shutterstock)

A former partner at Husch Blackwell and Dykema Gossett has been sentenced to 16 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay $2.46 million in taxes.

Eric E. Lenzen, 44, was sentenced to prison Tuesday and ordered to pay total restitution of $4.2 million to the Internal Revenue Service, according to an Oct. 16 judgment. The amount represents unpaid taxes plus penalties and interest.

U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Duffin of the Eastern District of Wisconsin said during sentencing Lenzen’s conduct was “exceptionally aggravated,” and he tried to “thwart the government’s attempts to recover” the money, according to an Oct. 16 press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Reuters, Law360 and Bloomberg Law have coverage.

An Oct. 8 government sentencing memorandum said Lenzen was “a high-powered, highly compensated attorney” who “made a choice not to pay his taxes.” Despite being given years to pay up, Lenzen “made a multitude of false representations and took significant actions to avoid paying his taxes,” the memo said.

While refusing to pay his taxes, Lenzen spent nearly $1.5 million on a “lavish lifestyle” that included private planes, jewelry, home remodeling and golf club memberships, the government said. While making promises to pay, Lenzen transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars between accounts or to third parties, the memo asserted.

Lenzen’s crimes “were motivated by greed, not need,” the memo said.

Source link

The post Ex-BigLaw partner hit with prison time, $4.2M restitution order in tax case appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Judge reprimanded for ordering payment of restitution to himself

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 19 Oct 2024 15:07:48 +0000

Judiciary

Judge reprimanded for ordering payment of restitution to himself

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 15, 2024, 1:15 pm CDT

A judge in Putnam County, Tennessee, has received a public reprimand for accepting a guilty plea and imposing restitution in a case involving damage to his truck.

The Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct reprimanded Judge R. Steven Randolph of Tennessee in an Oct. 14 letter, the Legal Profession Blog reports.

The defendant was charged only with driving without a license, despite damaging Randolph’s truck. Randolph accepted a guilty plea March 25 and ordered the defendant to pay restitution of $590, which was for the estimated cost to repair his vehicle, according to the reprimand letter. The restitution payment “was solely [Randolph’s] idea,” the letter said.

The defendant was not represented by a lawyer, and he did not speak English. He was assisted by an interpreter, however.

When the defendant asked to pay in installments, Randolph granted the request. No money was ever paid, however, because Randolph set aside the guilty plea in an April 1 order, and a different judge dismissed the case.

Randolph had maintained that the defendant waived the judge’s disqualification in the case, and the amount of restitution was minuscule. He acknowledged, however, that he shouldn’t have heard the case.

Even though Randolph informed the defendant about his conflict of interest, he did not follow proper procedure, the reprimand letter said. The only chance the defendant had to consider the waiver was in the presence of the judge and court personnel.

Henry Fincher, Randolph’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to an ABA Journal voicemail seeking comment.

Randolph previously received a public reprimand in September 2023 for posting a video to a Putnam County school’s Instagram page in which he pledged to “really crack down on truancy problems.” Unexcused absences would result in a sentence of seven hours of community service at the recycling center for the student and possible incarceration for parents, he said.

Source link

The post Judge reprimanded for ordering payment of restitution to himself appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.