Much as The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is currently in the midst of its twelfth season on Bravo, star Erika Jayne is currently embroiled in more legal issues, as has been her status quo for quite a while now, in large part tied to her former marriage with the disbarred and disgraced lawyer Tom Girardi. (The latest episode of the show featured Jayne confessing that Girardi had called her up from his memory care facility after she tested positive for COVID.) As Jayne returned from a pricey trip to Hawaii shared with castmates Lisa Rinna and Diana Jenkins, she was reportedly served papers indicating she’s now being targeted by a new lawsuit seeking a whopping $50 million.
RHOBH’s Erika Jayne was said to be heading out of Los Angeles International Airport on the night of Friday, July 22, when the casually dressed reality star was approached in the baggage claim area by a woman handling two sizable stacks of paperwork. According to PageSix, the papers detailed a new lawsuit filed by Edelson PC, with Jayne being accused of nine different charges. Those alleged crimes include racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, unlawful business practice and deceit, and more.
A clip of the airport incident has spread on social media, with Erika Jayne having quite the limited response to being served, saying:
Thank you very much.
The new court documents accuse Erika Jayne of being fully aware of Tom Girardi allegedly embezzling settlement payments that were meant to be distributed to the families and victims of those involved in the Lion Air Flight 610 crash in Indonesia. She’s also accused of publicly flaunting her glitzy lifestyle as a way of convincing potential and active clients of Girardi & Keese that the law firm was successful. Here’s some of the specific language used in the paperwork:
[The couple] routinely misappropriated client settlement money to project an image of wealth and to prop up a lifestyle made for reality TV. Tom and Erika Girardi purposefully portrayed themselves to the public as an extremely wealthy Beverly Hills power couple. [EJ Global] was created for the purpose of funneling money from Girardi Keese to benefit Erika.
To note, this isn’t actually the first time that Edelson PC has served Erika Jayne with such a high-dollar lawsuit. The firm also filed documents back in early April, saying Jayne was central to the “largest criminal racketeering enterprise” in history. But Jay Edelson shared some background info there, saying that the April lawsuit was more of a limited situation, as far as the targets of the claims and the specifics of those claims went. Meanwhile, the latest case is tied to “prosecuting the claims” of the widows and orphans whose settlement funds were allegedly embezzled. By the time the suit is finished, Edelson PC aims to prove that Girardi & Keese was a “criminal enterprise.”
Jayne, who also admitted in the latest Real Housewives episode that she was inclined to stay married to Girardi as a way of having to pay him alimony after a divorce, has long maintained her innocence where Tom Girardi’s alleged actions are concerned. But she clearly can’t stay away from legal action, as it was in the week prior to her Hawaii trip that Jayne was named in a lawsuit filed by Nicolas Cage’s ex Christina Fulton (who shares a son with the actor). Fulton was in a car accident and was supposed to receive nearly a million dollars after settlement negotiations were handled by Girardi & Keese, but claimed in the suit that she still hadn’t been paid $744,300 of that settlement three years later.
While it’s impossible to tell what will happen next for Erika Jayne & Co., fans can certainly keep up with Real Housewives of Beverly Hills when new episodes air Wednesday nights on Bravo at 8:00 p.m. ET, with past seasons available to stream for those with Peacock Premium subscriptions.
