The ex-chief accountant at convicted and disbarred attorney Tom Girardi’s law firm was sentenced Friday to more than 10 years in prison for helping the once-prominent litigator embezzle funds from clients and for siphoning millions for himself.
Chris Kamon, 51, pleaded guilty last year in downtown Los Angeles to two federal counts of wire fraud. He could have received up to 40 years behind bars, but U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton sentenced him Friday to 121 months in federal prison.
He was also ordered to pay more than $8.9 million in restitution.
“This defendant played a key role in a long-running scheme led by Tom Girardi,” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement after the sentencing. “For nearly 20 years, Kamon enabled Girardi’s scheme to defraud vulnerable clients of the law firm. Ironically, it was Kamon’s own lies that accelerated the law firm’s demise. We hope the sentence imposed today brings a measure of justice to his victims.”
Kamon, the former chief financial officer of the now-defunct Girardi Keese firm, admitted his role in Girardi’s embezzlement scheme and acknowledged taking millions of dollars from the firm’s accounts for his own use. He agreed to forfeit $3.1 million as part of his plea.
A former resident of Encino and Rancho Palos Verdes who was living in the Bahamas at the time of his 2022 arrest, Kamon was charged with multiple criminal counts and admitted that he used funds stolen from the firm to finance construction projects at his homes.
Girardi was found guilty in August 2024 of running a massive 10-year Ponzi scheme in which he stole at least $15 million in settlement funds from clients. A hearing is set next month in Los Angeles federal court to determine the extent of 85-year-old Girardi’s cognitive impairment before he is sentenced.
Jurors convicted the disgraced attorney of four counts of wire fraud for stealing from injured clients and spending the money on private jets, golf club memberships, jewelry and the career of his now-estranged wife, “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Jayne.
Kamon and Girardi were originally set to stand trial together last year, but the judge decided to separate their cases after defense attorneys argued that each defendant intended to blame the other. During Girardi’s trial, defense lawyers attempted to blame Kamon, suggesting the accountant orchestrated the fraud.
Girardi’s attorney told jurors that Kamon was operating as a “virtuoso” of fraud at the firm. Girardi himself testified that Kamon “was pretty clever in stealing millions of dollars.”
Girardi has dementia but was deemed able to assist in his own defense.
Both defendants also face federal fraud charges in Chicago in a separate case involving $3 million misappropriated from settlements intended for the widows and orphans of victims of a Boeing 737-Max crash in Indonesia.
