Girardi held himself up as a champion of people harmed by large corporation while he, in fact, was robbing from them, Los Angeles U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said at a news conference.
“He claimed to be fighting for those less fortunate,” Estrada said. “But our investigation has revealed that behind this public persona, (he was) committing fraud on a massive of scale.”
The schemes included swindling a Los Angeles couple whose son was paralyzed in a car wreck, an Arizona widow whose husband died when a boat unexpectedly sped up to 120 miles per hour (193 kilometers per hour) and flipped, and family members of victims in a 2018 Lion Air crash that killed 189 people, according to the indictments.
Girardi, 83, who once played a supporting role on “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” which starred his now-estranged wife Erika Jayne, was disbarred last summer for…
