Girardi’s Mental Decline Was Exaggerated to Dodge Fraud Trials

Disgraced plaintiffs’ attorney Thomas Girardi exaggerated his mental decline, a federal judge said in her ruling, unsealed on Friday, that found he is mentally competent to stand trial in his fraud case.

Though he likely has mild to moderate cognitive impairment, US District Judge Josephine L. Staton said she was convinced by the US government’s arguments that he’s exaggerating his condition.

Stanton rejected federal public defender arguments that Girardi’s judgment and ability for rational decision making is severely impaired, writing that Girardi had good reason to fake his decline and no one spoke up before his conservatorship action was filed in January 2021.

His “highly suspect” timeline of cognitive decline doesn’t line up with a normal trajectory, Stanton said in her 52-page ruling, which is slow decline. For example, letters Girardi sent in mid-2020 explaining why client settlement funds had not yet been distributed don’t suggest cognitive impairment, she said.

Staton of the Central District of California at Los Angeles on Jan. 2 found Girardi wasn’t sufficiently mentally diminished as his attorneys argued to block his criminal trial. Her ruling was posted on the court’s electronic docket, but the underlying decision laying out her rationale was initially sealed to give the parties time to identify which parts should remain sealed.

Prosecutors had alleged the disbarred attorney was exaggerating or faking his condition to avoid trial.

“At their zenith, (Girardi’s) superior cognition and his abilities as a civil trial attorney would have been likely to result in an exceptional ability to participate in his own defense,” Staton wrote.

But any loss of those abilities is not as intense as Girardi claims, and “stripped of the feigning and/or exaggeration,” Girardi can “assist properly in his defense,” she said.

Girardi was indicted in Illinois and California on wire fraud charges nearly one year ago, accused of allegedly embezzling millions of dollars from clients of his Los Angeles-based Girardi Keese law firm, as well as from co-counsel, and other professionals. The sealed competency reports will be shared with prosecutors and defense counsel in the Chicago litigation, which was on hold pending the competency ruling in California.

Creditors forced Girardi Keese and Girardi individually into bankruptcy. The ex-attorney was granted a conservator shortly after he was accused of embezzling settlement funds meant for his clients in litigation over the 2018 crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX off the coast of Indonesia. More than three-quarters of a billion dollars in claims were made against the firm and individual estate, with dozens of adversary proceedings filed by bankruptcy estate trustees to claw back millions proceeding in the Central District of California.

The federal Public Defender’s office represents Girardi. The US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California represents the government.

The case is United States v. Girardi, C.D. Cal., No. 2:23-cr-00047, order unsealed 1/5/24.