The third day of Tom Girardi’s competency hearing was well underway Wednesday morning when the once formidable trial attorney muttered an insult to the federal prosecutor leading the criminal case against him.
“Your honor, I want the record to make clear that the defendant said ‘F— you’ to me,” Assistant Atty. General Ali Moghaddas told U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton.
The remark was not audible among those present in the courtroom gallery, but Moghaddas saw and heard Girardi hurl the gibe from his seat at the defense table. Moghaddas suggested that Girardi’s defense attorneys were aware their client had issued the expletive, as they did not object.
The insult came as Moghaddas was cross-examining Stacey Wood, a forensic neuropsychologist who has opined that Girardi is not competent to stand trial.
Moghaddas incorporated the disruption into his questioning, asking Wood what the comment showed about Girardi’s present-day capacity.
“It’s certainly rude and inappropriate,” Wood told the prosecutor. “You deserve our respect.”
Staton, the judge who will ultimately decide whether Girardi is fit to stand trial, did not halt the proceedings, and Moghaddas proceeded with his cross-examination of Wood.
Girardi is under federal indictment in two jurisdictions — L.A. and Chicago — for allegedly embezzling $18 million from clients in what prosecutors have described as a decades-long Ponzi scheme involving settlement money. They allege he used money due to vulnerable people he represented to cover his law firm’s payroll and personal expenses, including a hefty American Express bill and fees at two country clubs.
Girardi was initially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2021 in connection with conservatorship proceedings and now resides in the locked memory ward of an Orange County nursing home. His attorneys maintain he has profound memory problems, making him unable to assist in his own defense and incompetent to go before a jury.
One of his physicians, Dr. Helena Chui, testified that despite the initial diagnosis, she no longer believes Girardi has Alzheimer’s. Chui said Tuesday that he instead has limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, or LATE, a type of dementia.
“I considered his stage of dementia to be moderately severe in 2023,” Chui said during her testimony.
On Tuesday, Wood explained the basis for her opinion that Girardi, 84, is not competent to stand trial on charges that he led a years-long fraud scheme at his once-renowned Wilshire Boulevard law firm.
“It’s very difficult for him to learn information and retain it over time,” she said, adding that Girardi would be unable to, or impaired in, effectively assisting his attorneys, undergoing a complex criminal trial, or making key decisions, such as entering a guilty plea.
“Despite meeting multiple times, it was difficult for Mr. Girardi to maintain information about the case,” Wood said. He also showed deficits in memory consistent with dementia. For example, asked how many times he had been married, Girardi said two, omitting one marriage. “I had to cue him for him to recall his third wife,” Wood said, referring to Erika Girardi, a star of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
“Did Mr. Girardi have difficulty remembering his children’s names?” asked Harbaugh, of the federal public defender’s office.
“He remembered his son but not his daughters’ names,” Wood replied. “That’s not that unusual among elderly patients with dementia.”
Wood described multiple meetings with Girardi and said that he can appear to maintain a conversation for 15 minutes or so, but beyond that, cannot follow an exchange.
“He wasn’t aware that he was being represented by the federal public defender,” Wood said, explaining that he initially thought his defense attorney was a former attorney at his law firm. “I asked who his attorney was and he said, ‘white guy, 50 years old.’”
After an initial meeting at which Wood went over the criminal case against him, she said, a week passed before their next meeting.
“He did not have any recollection. We were back to square one,” Wood said of their next meeting. She once again explained he was facing serious federal charges. “He did not remember anything.”
Girardi’s competency proceedings began in August, with an expert retained by prosecutors asserting that Girardi was exaggerating the extent of his cognitive problems.
Diana Goldstein, a Chicago neuropsychologist, interviewed Girardi over three days this year and concluded that he suffered from “mild cognitive disorder” but was “partially malingering” by pretending to have dementia.
She cited as evidence Girardi’s ability to follow the conversation. In an April interview, Girardi repeatedly told her that he did not know the answers to questions about the pending charges because he was a civil and not a criminal attorney. When Goldstein continued to press, Girardi said, “I’m not a criminal lawyer, as I said 15 times.”
“It shows his tracking ability. He remembered he previously told me,” Goldstein testified.
Girardi was disbarred last year.
This story will be updated.
Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan
Source link
