Criminal Justice
Disbarred lawyer Girardi’s son-in-law pleads guilty to contempt for former firm’s failure to pay Lion Air clients
Attorney Tom Girardi is pictured outside a Los Angeles courthouse in July 2014. (Photo by Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press)
Disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi’s son-in-law pleaded guilty last week to contempt of court for failing to obey a court order calling for the distribution of $7.5 million in settlement funds to four clients in connection with the October 2018 crash of Indonesia’s Lion Air Flight 610.
David R. Lira, 65, of Pasadena, California, pleaded guilty Thursday before U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland of the Northern District of Illinois, according to a June 6 press release and stories by Law360, Reuters and Law.com.
Lira, then a senior lawyer at the now-collapsed law firm Girardi Keese, knew between the April and June 2020 that Girardi did not pay the settlement funds in full, according to the plea agreement. During that time, Lira told Girardi to distribute the full amount and sent several emails to Girardi and the firm’s accounting department with a payout request
Lira resigned in June 2020 after confronting Girardi about the withheld funds, which amounted to about $3 million in December 2020. The victims eventually received the money from the insurer of a different firm, Edelson, which was the local counsel in the Illinois case, according to Law360.
The Lion Air crash had killed 189 people. Boeing, the lawsuit defendant, had wired the settlement money to Girardi Keese’s client trust account.
Girardi, 86, is famous for his legal team’s portrayal in the movie Erin Brockovich and for his marriage to Erika Girardi, who has appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reality TV show.
Girardi was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison earlier this month and ordered to pay $2.3 million in restitution after his conviction for stealing $15 million from four different clients over the course of a decade.
Lira’s sentencing is set for Oct. 8.
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