David Lira, 65, said his life has been “a raging sea” in the five years since he was indicted for his role as an attorney at Girardi’s when his father-in-law was stealing clients’ money
The son-in-law of disgraced former lawyer and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Tom Girardi was sentenced to four months in prison Monday for covering up the fact that Girardi withheld settlement funds from clients whose relatives had died in a 2018 Indonesian plane crash.
David Lira, 65, who is married to Girardi’s daughter Jacqueline, was sentenced to four months in prison by a federal judge in Chicago Tuesday.
He had pleaded guilty in June to charges connected to his work at his father-in-law’s now-defunct law firm, which included helping Girardi obtain a historic $7.5-million payout for the families of victims killed in the Lion Air plane crash. More than $3 million of that fund was then looted by Girardi and used, in part, to fund his lavish lifestyle with his wife, “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Jayne, a crime that Lira admitted he helped cover up.
Before his sentencing, Lira’s lawyer Damon Cheronis pleaded for mercy from the judge in a sentencing memo, writing: “His life has been a raging sea for five years. David has been excoriated in the press, unfairly being treated as being one and the same with Tom Girardi. He has lost income, clients, prestige, and the respect of some (although far from all) of his peers.”
“This is not a man who was ‘in it’ solely for the money,” the memo read, referencing his decades of legal service. The memo later stated that: “David did not intend to steal or cheat anyone else out of money.”
The judge’s sentence was lenient compared to the years in prison federal prosecutors were seeking. U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said that Lira’s “lies to the victim clients perpetuated Girardi’s theft in real time.”
In addition to the four-month prison term, Lira was sentenced to 200 hours of community service, four months of home confinement and two years of court-supervised release.
After clients began demanding their money, Lira says he confronted Girardi and then left the firm. The Lion Air victims eventually received their settlement funds under court order.
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Girardi, 86, of Seal Beach, Calif., was convicted last year by a federal jury in Los Angeles of embezzling millions of dollars in settlement funds from other clients, including Lion Air victims. He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison this year for his swindling of clients.
Michele McPhee
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