New details about a secret bank account — used by former Girardi Keese attorneys to funnel funds in 2020 without Thomas Girardi’s knowledge — emerged on the fifth day of Girardi’s Los Angeles criminal fraud trial.
As Girardi sent messages to employees warning that revenue streams had dried up that year, a handful of former Girardi Keese attorneys were sending funds through Citizen Business Bank in San Bernardino, emails showed.
This testimony about the existence of a bank account hidden from Girardi is the most concrete evidence presented so far that he wasn’t aware of all that was going on at the firm.
Most of the transactions in the secret account were linked to Los Angeles cases, which would have normally gone through L.A. banks, a former employee in the firm’s accounting department testified on Tuesday in the US District Court for the Central District of California.
Norina Rouillard, who worked in the accounting department for nearly two decades and is testifying for the second day, said during cross-examination that she was directed to deal with checks sent to the San Bernardino bank.
“Less we know about this the better,” the firm’s ex-CFO, Christopher Kamon, said in a 2020 email to Rouillard.
Former Girardi Keese attorneys Christopher Aumais, John “Jack” Girardi, and Keith Griffin were involved with the Citizens Business Bank transactions, according to email records shown to the jury.
The California State Bar has since sought to disbar Griffin and David Lira, Girardi’s son-in-law. Lira was charged with a felony in Illinois. John Girardi and Christopher Aumais don’t appear to have a disciplinary record with the lawyer regulatory body.
Aumais and Kamon obtained Lira’s signature stamp as he left the firm mid-June 2020. Lira’s name continued to appear on trust checks in San Bernardino after he left the firm, Rouillard confirmed.
Assistant US Attorney Scott Paetty in re-direct questioning sought to present the jury with the idea that the account might have been secret from Girardi for the benefit of clients. He prompted Rouillard to contextualize the account’s creation with the simultaneous reports that Girardi had stolen from clients.
Focusing on the case of Girardi Keese client Cesar Astorga, whose $5 million on a 2018 settlement was stalled for years, Rouillard said that Griffin was Astorga’s attorney and was “diligent and worked hard for his clients.”
Griffin wrote in a November 2020 email about the San Bernardino account, “as soon as it clears, first wire is to Cesar Astorga.”
Spotlight on Kamon
Rouillard wrapped up her second day of testimony Tuesday, much of which focused on transactions involving Kamon.
She testified on Monday that Girardi determined which clients were paid from trust accounts and when, saying she never recalled seeing Kamon tell Girardi not to pay a client.
On Tuesday, Rouillard recounted instances of Kamon inflating the cost of business expenses to coax Girardi into cutting him larger checks than necessary, and confirmed that Kamon sometimes wrote six- or seven-figure checks with only a period for the description, categorizing them as miscellaneous expenses.
Kamon is the godfather to Rouillard’s son, she said.
Deputy Federal Public Defender Charles Snyder leaned into the government’s strategy of characterizing Kamon as taking advantage of Girardi’s mental decline while questioning Rouillard about Kamon’s transactions.
As Snyder asked her repeatedly to confirm that she thought in late 2020 that Girardi “couldn’t remember shit, he was delusional, and there was nothing that could be done,” Rouillard began to cry, audibly taking deep breaths and grabbing a tissue.
“I had personal stuff going on,” she said.
“Take your time,” Judge Josephine L. Staton said, sending the courtroom for a lunch break.
