Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Tom Girardi's CFO Pleads Guilty Embezzling Tens of Millions

The former longtime head of the accounting department at Girardi Keese pleaded guilty Friday to enabling the embezzlement of tens of millions of dollars from the firm’s injured clients a part of a Ponzi scheme and the firm itself to pay for construction on his Orange County mansions.

Christopher Kazuo Kamon, 51, formerly of Encino and Palos Verdes and who was residing in the Bahamas at the time of his November 2022 arrest, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in a federal courtroom on Friday.
According to his plea agreement, from 2004 until December 2020, Kamon was the head of the accounting department at Girardi Keese, a plaintiffs’ personal injury law firm based in downtown Los Angeles. Kamon worked closely with Thomas Vincent Girardi, 85, who was found guilty of pilfering funds from his clients in August. Girardi is scheduled to be sentenced by a federal judge in December.

Related: Ex-Lawyer and Estranged "Real Housewives" Husband Tom Girardi Indicted on Fraud Charges

“Tom Girardi built celebrity status and lured in victims by falsely portraying himself as a ‘Champion of Justice,’” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada of California's Central District. “In reality, he was a Robin Hood-in-reverse, stealing from the needy to support of a lavish, Hollywood lifestyle."

Now Kamon has admitted that he "knowingly and with intent to defraud," schemed with Girardi to steal from the firm's clients, and then began to line his own pockets with money he stole from the firm. Some of those monies were used on "construction projects at defendant Kamon's personal residences in Palos Verdes and Encino," prosecutors say.

In December 2020, Girardi Keese’s creditors forced the once-prominent law firm into bankruptcy proceedings. The law firm dissolved in January 2021, and the State Bar of California disbarred Girardi in July 2022.  Girardi's estranged wife "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Erika Jayne filed for divorce from her husband of 21 years in November 2020, alleging infidelity.

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