Criminal Justice
Former Girardi Keese CFO ordered to pay over $8.9M in restitution, serve prison time for embezzlement
Attorney Tom Girardi of the now-defunct law firm Girardi Keese is pictured outside a Los Angeles courthouse in July 2014. Christopher Kazuo Kamon, the former chief financial officer for the firm, was sentenced Friday to 121 months in federal prison for embezzling money from the firm and its clients. (Photo by Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press)
The former chief financial officer for the now-defunct law firm Girardi Keese was sentenced Friday to 121 months in federal prison for embezzling money from the firm and its clients.
Christopher Kazuo Kamon, 51, was also ordered to pay more than $8.9 million in restitution, according to a April 11 press release. He had pleaded guilty in October 2024 to two counts of wire fraud in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton of the Central District of California said during the sentencing hearing that Kamon helped build a “web of deceit and manipulation.” Kamon had worked closely with former name partner Tom Girardi, who was convicted in August 2024 on four counts of wire fraud for or stealing $15 million from four clients over the course of a decade.
Girardi, who has been disbarred, was famous for his legal team’s portrayal in the film Erin Brockovich and for his marriage to Erika Girardi, who has appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reality TV show.
Law360, Law.com and Reuters are among the publications with coverage of Kamon’s sentence.
During the hearing, Staton described the relationship between Kamon and Girardi as “symbiotic,” according to Law.com.
According to Law.com, “Staton’s voice shook slightly as she described, in detail, the disastrous financial situations of two of Girardi’s injured clients: a family who, as a result of Girardi’s main fraud scheme, was unable to purchase a house large enough to house the equipment necessary to care for their quadriplegic child and a widowed client who—after being assured by the firm that her embezzled settlement would pay off her house—was later forced to take out a home equity loan and sell it.”
Kamon is also facing federal charges in Illinois for allegedly stealing money from relatives of air crash victims. Kamon’s lawyer, Michael Severo, told Law360 that a nearly finalized plea deal would allow Kamon to serve his sentence in the Illinois case concurrently with the California sentence.
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