Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: It was another victory for gun control advocates at the
Speaker 1: Fourth Circuit on Friday, as the full Court rule that
Speaker 1: Maryland's gun licensing scheme is constitutional and by an overwhelming
Speaker 1: vote of fourteen to two. The gun control measure requires
Speaker 1: applicants to submit fingerprints for a background investigation, complete a
Speaker 1: four hour safety training course, and wait up to thirty
Speaker 1: days to get approval before continuing the process. More than
Speaker 1: forty other states have similar so called shall issue licensing laws,
Speaker 1: under which there's no discretion to deny a handgun license
Speaker 1: to anyone who meets the statutory requirements. Joining me is
Speaker 1: an expert in the Second Amendment, John Donahue, a professor
Speaker 1: at Stanford Law School. It's difficult to keep track of
Speaker 1: all the Second cases in the courts these days.
Speaker 2: Well, of course, the Supreme Court seems to be trying
Speaker 2: to almost deregulate all issues of gun safety, and this
Speaker 2: has become like a snowball going downhill where the gun
Speaker 2: rights groups keep insisting that they need more and more
Speaker 2: freedom to pursue you whatever purchase they want at almost
Speaker 2: whatever age. These guns can be purchased and regardless of
Speaker 2: the fletality of the weapons. And so it's really almost
Speaker 2: remarkable to me to see things that a few years
Speaker 2: ago almost everyone would consider as unassailable as necessary gun
Speaker 2: safety measures are now being challenged in court.
Speaker 1: So last Friday, the full Fourth Circuit so on Bank meeting,
Speaker 1: all the judges reversed the decision of a panel last
Speaker 1: year which had voted two to one that the law
Speaker 1: violated the Second Amendment. And it was a fourteen into
Speaker 1: two decision reversing that panel and finding the law constitutional.
Speaker 1: Will you explain the majority's reasoning in the case.
Speaker 2: So essentially, the plaintiffs in that case, who were challenging
Speaker 2: the regulations in Maryland, were saying that this was depriving
Speaker 2: them of their immediate ability to access guns. They want
Speaker 2: to be able to walk into a store and you know,
Speaker 2: just walk out with a gun, and this was imposing
Speaker 2: a licensing requirement. And essentially what the court said is,
Speaker 2: if you look to the concerns expressed by the US
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, if you have a licensing scenario that doesn't
Speaker 2: involve you know, burdensome delays in access to weaponry, that
Speaker 2: should be presumptively permissible. And so that was the language
Speaker 2: that the Court used in saying that these shall issue
Speaker 2: requirements comported with the standards that the US Supreme Court
Speaker 2: has set for the requirements of the Second Amendment.
Speaker 1: The majority they cited a footnote in the Supreme Court's
Speaker 1: Ruined decision that said, quote, nothing in our analysis shall
Speaker 1: be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality of the forty three
Speaker 1: states shall issue licensing regimes. In light of that footnote,
Speaker 1: how did the two judges on the first panel come
Speaker 1: out against this shall issue law because it seems pretty clear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's always a pathway to complicate Second Amendments decisions.
Speaker 2: What happened there was the Court said that footnote that
Speaker 2: you just alluded to only dealt with shall issue laws
Speaker 2: dealing with the right to carry guns, while the regulation
Speaker 2: at issue in the current case that we're talking about
Speaker 2: dealt with access to possess guns in the first instance.
Speaker 2: And so they were trying to draw distinction saying that
Speaker 2: you have greater rights to get immediate access to guns
Speaker 2: that you're going to be taking into your own home
Speaker 2: as opposed to guns that you're going to be carrying
Speaker 2: outside the home. And this court said, no, that distinction
Speaker 2: is irrelevant as long as it's a non discretionary judgment
Speaker 2: of the administrators of the law. These sort of shallish
Speaker 2: your requirements are acceptable in either domain.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should step back for a minute. And since
Speaker 1: you know, the Bruin case seems to be causing a
Speaker 1: lot of confusion in the lower courts, explain what the
Speaker 1: tests set out in the Bruin case in the majority
Speaker 1: opinion written by Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 2: So what Ruin said which has created an enormous, you know,
Speaker 2: chaos literally among courts all across the country, is it
Speaker 2: seemed to suggest if anything in any way infringes on
Speaker 2: access to guns or even accessories to guns, then a
Speaker 2: burden is then imposed on the government to come forward
Speaker 2: and assert that there were similar regulations in place in
Speaker 2: seventeen ninety one when the Second Amendment was adopted, or
Speaker 2: maybe sometime close to that. And of course, since the
Speaker 2: world has changed enormously in seventeen ninety one, the legality
Speaker 2: of weapons is vastly greater. The threats of mass shootings,
Speaker 2: which was nonexistent in seventeen ninety one, is very real today.
Speaker 2: It is sort of a nonsensical decision, but that's what
Speaker 2: the Court said, and brew In and many courts have
Speaker 2: felt very constrained by that language, even though more recently,
Speaker 2: with the Rashimi decision of just a couple of months ago,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court seemed to be signaling that they're not
Speaker 2: going to be invoking the Bruin standard as aggressively as
Speaker 2: many of the judges who decided cases over the last
Speaker 2: two years since Brune was decided have done.
Speaker 1: And just to explain, Rahemi was a June decision by
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court upholding a federal law that bars firearm
Speaker 1: possession by people under domestic violence restraining orders. And the
Speaker 1: vote was eight to one, with Justice Clarence Thomas the
Speaker 1: loan dissenter. Turning back to the Friday Fourth Circuit decision,
Speaker 1: which is another victory for gun control advocates in the
Speaker 1: Fourth Circuit, it's the third on bank decision upholding firearms laws. Recently,
Speaker 1: one upheld regulations for assault rifles, another upheld of federal
Speaker 1: law criminalizing guns without serial numbers. And now this shall
Speaker 1: issue tell us about the decision upholding regulations for assault rifles.
Speaker 2: So this was the decision authored by Judge Harvey Wilkinson,
Speaker 2: very conservative Reagan appointed judge who I should note was
Speaker 2: very critical of the Heller decision when it was first
Speaker 2: handed down. Judge Wilkinson wrote a very condemning article of
Speaker 2: the wisdom of the Heller decision. So in some sense
Speaker 2: he is continuing to express his concerns about the Second
Speaker 2: Amendment jurisprudence that the Court has embarked upon since the
Speaker 2: Heller decision was decided in two thousand and eight. And
Speaker 2: essentially he said that weapons such as the assault rifles
Speaker 2: that were banned by the Maryland law are not protected
Speaker 2: by the Second Amendment. You do not have a constitutional
Speaker 2: right to have a weapon of that level of lethality.
Speaker 2: And I think in terms of wise public policy, that's
Speaker 2: unassailably true. If states like California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Speaker 2: and Maryland wants to protect their citizens from the dangers
Speaker 2: of assault weapons, it certainly seems wise policy to allow
Speaker 2: them to do so. So.
Speaker 1: The Fourth Circuit has fifteen active judges, nine appointed by
Speaker 1: Democrats and six appointed by Republicans. The two judges who
Speaker 1: voted against the law in the first case we were
Speaker 1: talking about Republican appointees is it surprising that so many
Speaker 1: Republican appointees are agreeing with these gun control laws.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you do have a little bit of a split,
Speaker 2: because you know, twenty years ago, Republicans were very pro
Speaker 2: gun safety. You know, Reagan of course endorsed the gout
Speaker 2: aal assault weapon ban, He endorsed the Brady Bill. He's
Speaker 2: as governor of California put into place restrictions on carrying
Speaker 2: of guns. So, you know, even Reagan, who was in
Speaker 2: some sense, you know, the idol of conservative Republicans, was very,
Speaker 2: very strongly in favor of gun safety regulation. But there
Speaker 2: has been this shift in the party. So some of
Speaker 2: the older judges, like Judge Wilkinson, continued to conform to
Speaker 2: earlier Republican notions about the need for protecting the citizenry.
Speaker 2: But the newer cadre of Republican judges, many of whom
Speaker 2: were appointed by President Trump, have taken on a very
Speaker 2: macho posturing that the stronger the Second Amendments is, the
Speaker 2: more they're conforming to constitutional dictates. And even though that's
Speaker 2: a very controversial position from a legal standpoint, it does
Speaker 2: seem to be a very prevalent view among younger Republican judges.
Speaker 1: What's your opinion about the constitutionality of the way the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court has been expanding gun rights.
Speaker 2: Well, I do think Bruin will go down in history
Speaker 2: as one of the most poorly reasoned and really absurd
Speaker 2: decisions handed down by the United States Supreme Court. You
Speaker 2: know there over the years. The dred Scott case is
Speaker 2: obviously something that stands out as a horrible decision, and
Speaker 2: Bruin is definitely up there. It really makes literally do
Speaker 2: sense to constrain government policy today against threats that were
Speaker 2: completely inconceivable in seventeen ninety one. I still remember one
Speaker 2: case that I worked on involving a mass shooting in
Speaker 2: Sutherland Springs, Texas, where a guy stood outside a church
Speaker 2: fired two hundred and fifty four bullets through the walls
Speaker 2: of the church and killed twenty six people inside the church.
Speaker 2: This was November twenty seventeen, and that would not be
Speaker 2: at all possible in seventeen ninety one. There was no
Speaker 2: weapon I could shoot through walls that people were carrying
Speaker 2: around and could kill twenty six people back in seventeen
Speaker 2: ninety one. So to look back to what the regulatory
Speaker 2: apparatus was at the time of the adoption of the
Speaker 2: Second Amendment really is nonsensical given the very different threats,
Speaker 2: and weaponry is getting more lethal of course all the time,
Speaker 2: while the history stays exactly the thing. So this mismatch
Speaker 2: between the growing lethality of weaponry and the history of
Speaker 2: Second Amendment regulation really renders the Brewing decision, I think
Speaker 2: an incoherent judicial standard, which I think you started to
Speaker 2: get a sense even the Supreme Court realized their mistake
Speaker 2: in their effort to cut back a little bit in
Speaker 2: the Ratheemi decision.
Speaker 1: So in the Rahemi decision in a concurring opinion, just
Speaker 1: as Katanji Brown Jackson quoted a dozen lower court opinions
Speaker 1: complaining that judges can't figure out how Brewin is supposed
Speaker 1: to work. Shouldn't the Court have taken that opportunity in
Speaker 1: Rahemi to set the standard out better, or you know,
Speaker 1: to rework breugh In in some way because the confusion continues.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's I mean, it's disgraceful and embarrassing for
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court that they have allowed this confusion to arise.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you look across some of the
Speaker 2: articulated decisions of courts across the country explicitly condemning the
Speaker 2: Court and saying, you know, we're quite frankly afraid of
Speaker 2: what you're doing. It's almost unheard of in American history,
Speaker 2: the widespread judicial you know, astonishment at the lack of
Speaker 2: wisdom that the Supreme Court seems to be engaging in.
Speaker 1: Coming up next on the Bloomberg Lawn Show, I'll continue
Speaker 1: this conversation with Stanford law professor John Donahue, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about a shocking decision from a Kansas judge, the
Speaker 1: first to find the federal ban on machine guns to
Speaker 1: be unconstitutional. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: It's a decision that's shocking on many levels. In a first,
Speaker 1: a federal judge in Kansas has found that the federal
Speaker 1: ban on machine guns is unconstitutional and tossed out two
Speaker 1: machine gun possession charges against a twenty two year old man,
Speaker 1: which JAW Judge John Broomes, a Trump appointee, wrote the
Speaker 1: court that the Second Amendment applies to the weapons charged
Speaker 1: because they are bearable arms within the original meaning of
Speaker 1: the Amendment. The judge pointed out that prosecutors couldn't find
Speaker 1: a historical analog, and that there were no laws similar
Speaker 1: to the modern day ban on machine guns either in
Speaker 1: eighteenth century England or during the period around America's founding.
Speaker 1: Of course, the obvious reason for that is that the
Speaker 1: machine gun wasn't invented until eighteen eighty four. I've been
Speaker 1: talking to Professor John Donahue of Stanford Law School. So, John,
Speaker 1: the judge basically found you have a Second Amendment right
Speaker 1: to own a machine gun. How did he come up
Speaker 1: with that conclusion.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a terrible decision in every respect, except the
Speaker 2: only thing that you can say about it is it's
Speaker 2: not an absurd decision if you believe what the court
Speaker 2: said it Brewin the Brewing decision was so nonsensical it
Speaker 2: opened up the ability for plants all across the country
Speaker 2: to challenge every single conceivable gun safety measure that's been
Speaker 2: in existence, no matter how long. You know, we're talking
Speaker 2: about ninety years ago this federal law went into effect,
Speaker 2: and the aftermass of you know, the Tommy gun episodes
Speaker 2: of people getting massacred all across the country during Prohibition.
Speaker 2: So this machine gun van seems tolly unassailable in the
Speaker 2: minds of almost every judge. But after Bruin, it became,
Speaker 2: you know, a clear pathway for attacks and literally every
Speaker 2: other gun safety measure. So it was an embarrassment for
Speaker 2: the judge that he went down this path, but at
Speaker 2: least he can say, look, I was being faithful to
Speaker 2: what the Supreme Court did in Brewing and making this decision.
Speaker 2: It really was an appalling decision. I think that the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court will realize that they will look so bad
Speaker 2: if this were to be sustained, when you know people
Speaker 2: are going to be mowed down in the street app
Speaker 2: extreme levels that they will not want to have that
Speaker 2: on their plate, and they will not support this decision.
Speaker 2: But it does mean they're going to have to cut
Speaker 2: back on the language that they endorsed in Ruined.
Speaker 1: So this will go to the Tenth Circuit, which is
Speaker 1: liberal leaning. Democratic appointees outnumber Republicans by seven to five.
Speaker 1: Does it seem likely to you that the Tenth Circuit
Speaker 1: will overturn this judge's decision?
Speaker 2: I think though. You know the problem is that many
Speaker 2: of the Republican judges think the way that I can
Speaker 2: make a name for myself, you know, be the hero
Speaker 2: in the conservative circles that I dwell in now and
Speaker 2: maybe get elevated to a higher court is to take
Speaker 2: the most extreme possible Second Amendment interpretation that I can find,
Speaker 2: And of course it's helped Brett Tavanaugh make it to
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. He took some the extreme positions when
Speaker 2: he was a lower court judge and encouraged the NRA
Speaker 2: to push for his elevation by Donald Trump. And the
Speaker 2: judge in Kansas might have been taking along these same lines.
Speaker 2: But if there are enough Democratic members on the panel,
Speaker 2: and of course it doesn't necessarily have to go to
Speaker 2: an non bossed decision, so you could get you know,
Speaker 2: two or three Democratic judges on a panel exsemination. So
Speaker 2: it's unclear exactly what would happen. But this decision I
Speaker 2: think will be such a bad case in the mouths
Speaker 2: of so many judges that I think it will be
Speaker 2: overturned ultimately at the circuit court level, and the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court would probably not want to have this one come
Speaker 2: back to them.
Speaker 1: Does Bruin make all federal gun control laws subject to challenge?
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean it's an absurd decision because what it
Speaker 2: says is if there's any way in which someone can
Speaker 2: argue that the particular measure infringes on, you know, the
Speaker 2: ability to get a gun, or even something related to
Speaker 2: a gun, like a magazine that enters into a gun.
Speaker 2: Then it requires the government to come forward with a
Speaker 2: strong and compelling argument that there was a historical tradition
Speaker 2: of the same type of gun regulation. And you know,
Speaker 2: obviously there were no high capacity magazines in seventeen ninety one,
Speaker 2: so there were no such restrictions. And you know, there
Speaker 2: were no restrictions on people who battered their wives and
Speaker 2: keep them from getting guns at seventeen ninety one. So
Speaker 2: that's what led the Fifth Circuit to say that the
Speaker 2: federal prohibition gun carrying by those subjects to a domestic
Speaker 2: violence restraining order was unconstitutional. Luckily, that part at least
Speaker 2: was overturned in Rahimi, But even Rahimi could have gone
Speaker 2: much farther in trying to cut back on the excesses
Speaker 2: that has invited.
Speaker 1: As far as the Fourth Circuit's decision upholding the Maryland
Speaker 1: assault weapons ban, the Third Circuit in the Seventh Circuit
Speaker 1: have also found such restrictions aren't prohibited under the Bruant approach,
Speaker 1: and the First Circuit has upheld a large capacity magazine ban,
Speaker 1: have any circuit courts ruled against assault weapons bans.
Speaker 2: There has been no such decision. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: Judge Kavanaugh, when he was on the DC Circuit, had
Speaker 2: written that the DCSOL weapon band was unconstitutional. So we
Speaker 2: know that there's at least one person on the three
Speaker 2: court who believed that, and I'm sure that Alito and
Speaker 2: Thomas would follow that particular path as well. The interesting
Speaker 2: thing is that the Fifth Circuit has shown this enormous,
Speaker 2: super zealous attachment to the most extreme version of the
Speaker 2: Second Amendment. But this issue can't come up in the
Speaker 2: Fifth Circuit because no assault weapon ban exists in the
Speaker 2: Fifth Circuit. So all of the states that have a
Speaker 2: saw weapon bans outside of the Fifth Circuit, clearly, if
Speaker 2: there were any such ban in the Fifth Circuit, they
Speaker 2: would render that decision. But the already conservative nature of
Speaker 2: those legislatures has preempted that decision from coming up before
Speaker 2: the Fifth Circuit.
Speaker 1: It's so amazing to me that in Bruin that the
Speaker 1: you know, the five justices signed on to this test
Speaker 1: that Thomas laid out. It sounded absurd upon first hearing,
Speaker 1: and it's proven to be absurd, as the lower courts
Speaker 1: try to make heads or tails of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is absurd. You know, some of these judges
Speaker 2: of the sixth Conservatives are sort of shall we say,
Speaker 2: wacky zellets. But even Robert, who at least was a
Speaker 2: moderate Zellate, you know, has embarrassed himself enormously by signing
Speaker 2: his name on the Brilling decision. You know, this is
Speaker 2: something we will live in infamy for joining such an
Speaker 2: absurd decision. And at some point this decision will be overturned.
Speaker 2: It's going to take a while, obviously, either an expansion
Speaker 2: of the US Supreme Court or just many years until
Speaker 2: the composition of the court changes. It's hard to imagine
Speaker 2: that the sid Zealots will change their mind. But you know,
Speaker 2: if we get enough matt killing who even they might
Speaker 2: realize the folly of the Brillain decision.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for your insights, John, that's Professor John
Speaker 1: Donahue of Stanford Law School.
Speaker 3: Mister Girardi was no champion of justice. In fact, he
Speaker 3: was a perpetrator of injustice, victimizing his own clients when
Speaker 3: they were most vulnerable and most need.
Speaker 1: Tom Girardi has gone from famous legal heavyweight to disgrace
Speaker 1: disbarred lawyer to convicted felon. Girardi was catapulted into the
Speaker 1: national limelight after the two thousand Oscar winning movie Aaron
Speaker 1: Brockovich showcased his role in getting a more than three
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars settlement from PG and E for poisoning
Speaker 1: a California town's drinking water.
Speaker 4: In the interest of putting this whole thing to rest,
Speaker 4: PG and He is willing to offer the Jensens two
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand dollars for their own two hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty thousand in terms of land value out in Hinckley.
Speaker 4: Mister Masery, we feel that's a more than fair price.
Speaker 5: How About in terms of medical expenses, two hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty thousand isn't going to come close to what this
Speaker 5: family is going to have to spend on doctors.
Speaker 1: He was hailed as a pioneer of toxic tort litigation,
Speaker 1: known for getting massive settlements for his clients. This season
Speaker 1: on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and his fame
Speaker 1: was enhanced as the husband bank rolling the extravagant lifestyle
Speaker 1: of one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. His wife,
Speaker 1: Erica Girardi, I'm.
Speaker 2: An enigma wrapped in a riddle and cash.
Speaker 1: But US attorney Martina Strada says Girardi funded that extravagance
Speaker 1: by embezzling tens of millions of dollars from his clients
Speaker 1: in a ten year Ponzi scheme, and.
Speaker 3: Mister Giardi chose to take advantage those very same clients,
Speaker 3: those vulnerable people, the ones who'd gone through traumatic incidents,
Speaker 3: in order to enrich himself.
Speaker 1: A Los Angeles jury agreed and convicted Girardi of four
Speaker 1: counts of wire fraud. So, now, at age eighty five
Speaker 1: and suffering from dementia, the one's high powered lawyer is
Speaker 1: facing jail time. Joining me is Bloomberg Law correspondent Maya Spodo,
Speaker 1: who covered the trial. Maya, how did the prosecution present
Speaker 1: its case against Girardi?
Speaker 5: So the prosecution's case started rooted in the testimonies of
Speaker 5: these clients, who's missing funds made up the backbone of
Speaker 5: the charges against Girardi. And so the first witness we
Speaker 5: heard from was Joseph Rugomez. His home exploded and his
Speaker 5: body was covered in burns, and his girlfriend died in
Speaker 5: the explosion, and so we saw him limp up to
Speaker 5: the witness stand and explain how Girardi used these excuses
Speaker 5: such as a fake six point five percent interest accruing
Speaker 5: savings account and the sake excuse that he needed approval
Speaker 5: from a judge to justify stalling these payments to Rugoma.
Speaker 5: And we heard these excuses get echoed throughout the remaining
Speaker 5: clients who testified these excuses became ridiculous. There was one
Speaker 5: excuse that Girardi used where he said he was having
Speaker 5: the funds held up because he was working on a
Speaker 5: tax issue which would tax women more than men on
Speaker 5: certain personal injury settlements and he needed to work sat
Speaker 5: out with the irs. And even a lawyer at the
Speaker 5: firm who was freshly out of law school and had
Speaker 5: just passed the bar spotted that excuse and said that
Speaker 5: makes no sense. And so we started the case hearing
Speaker 5: about these excuses and the pain that they caused for clients.
Speaker 5: And then the prosecutors presented their detailed path where they
Speaker 5: followed the money, and we heard from the federal government
Speaker 5: on what these client trust bake accounts really looked like
Speaker 5: and where the funds were going. So that's how we
Speaker 5: got into more of the lavish lifestyle part. Of the case.
Speaker 1: Fans of the Real Housewives know about that extravagant lifestyle,
Speaker 1: how much did the jury learn about it?
Speaker 5: Sure saw so much money being used to purchase different
Speaker 5: categories of luxury items, such as two private jets already
Speaker 5: purchased expensive jewelry. We saw a check written directly out
Speaker 5: of one of the client trust accounts for seven hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty thousand dollars to pay for diamond earrings for
Speaker 5: his now exchanged wife, who's Eric Jane. We also saw
Speaker 5: how funds were taken from Gerardi Keith to pay for
Speaker 5: Girardi's memberships and country clubs. One of the lawyers at
Speaker 5: the firm charged property taxes to his Girardi Keith American
Speaker 5: Express card. And we also heard details about the lavish
Speaker 5: parties that were hosted on the company's dime, which had
Speaker 5: six figure entertainment budgets. There was a Super Bowl party
Speaker 5: where lawyers were given as goodie bags their own personal jerseys,
Speaker 5: and all of these parties were being hosted while some
Speaker 5: clients who were in immense pain still were not receiving
Speaker 5: all of the settlement funds that they were doe.
Speaker 1: The testimony of the client victims was very emotional at times,
Speaker 1: tell us about the most compelling testimony.
Speaker 5: So the one that I found most compelling, and also
Speaker 5: the first client witness that one of the jurors named
Speaker 5: when he spoke to report after the decision was Erica Saldana's.
Speaker 5: She showed up to court actually with COVID and had
Speaker 5: to testify remotely, but she was sobbing for much of
Speaker 5: her testimony. Had to push up her glasses twide away
Speaker 5: her tears because she was crying so hard. Her very
Speaker 5: young son was immobilized after a drunk driver crashed into
Speaker 5: Saldana's car, and she turned to Gerardi Keis for representation,
Speaker 5: but she never received from the firm the entire amount
Speaker 5: of her settlement, which she needed to purchase an accessible
Speaker 5: home for her son, And so Saldana spoke of how
Speaker 5: she spent the last year of her son's life chasing
Speaker 5: down Girardi to ask for the money she needed, and
Speaker 5: at one point Girardi even called her while she was
Speaker 5: in the hospital with her son and accused her of
Speaker 5: not being sympathetic to Girardi's own health issues he was
Speaker 5: having he said, eye cancer surgery, and she said, how
Speaker 5: can you accuse me of not being sympathetic to health issues.
Speaker 1: My son is dying, And the jury heard Girardi's own
Speaker 1: voice in voicemail messages giving his clients these excuses.
Speaker 5: Yes, one of the common refrains that he would say
Speaker 5: to clients was don't be bad to me. Don't be
Speaker 5: mad at me. I'm a good guy. He would tell clients,
Speaker 5: including Joe Rogomez, that he loved their family. This was
Speaker 5: one of the most important cases to him. He would,
Speaker 5: even into the late years of the firm, send these
Speaker 5: detailed messages where he got the facts of the case right.
Speaker 5: He knew who he was talking to, and he was
Speaker 5: just saying, please, you know, don't be mad at me.
Speaker 5: The payments are coming later, here are the reasons why
Speaker 5: they're being held up.
Speaker 1: So the prosecutor to say it was a Ponzi scheme,
Speaker 1: how did they show that?
Speaker 5: They basically showed how they said clients three settlement funds
Speaker 5: were used to pay off Client two settlement funds which
Speaker 5: were used to pay off client one settlement funds, and
Speaker 5: they had an IRS agent present in a now of
Speaker 5: bank records from the firm's client trust accounts, which showed
Speaker 5: how the settlements from later in the twenty tens were
Speaker 5: used to pay a client whose settlement was made in
Speaker 5: twenty thirteen, and the firms client trust accounts are subject
Speaker 5: to these rules that are very strict, where you can't
Speaker 5: commingle funds and you can't have a negative balance in
Speaker 5: the account, otherwise it would alert the state bar. But
Speaker 5: these transfers happened anyway.
Speaker 1: The defense tried to shift the blame to Christopher Comone,
Speaker 1: the former chief financial officer of the law firm, saying
Speaker 1: he was the one responsible for the loss of client funds,
Speaker 1: not Girardi. He's going to be tried separately in January.
Speaker 1: Why didn't that defense work?
Speaker 5: It wasn't successful because the prosecutors emphasized in closings that
Speaker 5: they have substantial evidence against Comone and that he is
Speaker 5: a co defendant in the case and he will see
Speaker 5: his day in court. The defense spent a lot of
Speaker 5: time going through records of how Comone used Gerardi Keith's
Speaker 5: funds to pay essentially shell companies that were either companies
Speaker 5: where Kimone had a leadership role or he was closely
Speaker 5: affiliated with members of these companies, And they also described
Speaker 5: how he paid twenty thousand dollars a month from the
Speaker 5: firm to his then fiance. She testified, and he purchased
Speaker 5: lavish trips for the two of them. And so the
Speaker 5: picture that the defense was trying to paint was that
Speaker 5: Chris Comone was basically taking advantage of Girardi's declining mental
Speaker 5: state and taking these funds out from under his nose.
Speaker 5: But the jury didn't ultimately.
Speaker 1: Buy that Girardi is suffering from dementia and is currently
Speaker 1: living in the memory ward of a nursing home. So
Speaker 1: I was very surprised that he took the stand, was
Speaker 1: his testimony coherent.
Speaker 5: Everyone in the audience was shocked. It was a surprise move.
Speaker 5: He got a on the stand, and at first it
Speaker 5: seemed like this was just something that has been programmed
Speaker 5: into him from years of being this formidable trial lawyer.
Speaker 5: He had all the instincts. He smiled at the jury,
Speaker 5: he addressed them when he spoke, He made jokes, he
Speaker 5: tried to banter with the prosecutor, but it became clear
Speaker 5: as he was speaking that he was getting some pretty
Speaker 5: important facts wrong. He said that he thought that Gerardi
Speaker 5: Keith Law firm was still running when it closed down
Speaker 5: and went into bankruptcy. Several years ago, and he also
Speaker 5: said he didn't know his own lawyer's name and the
Speaker 5: exact quote. This was the last question that his defender
Speaker 5: asked him. Sam Croft said, Tom, what's my name? And
Speaker 5: Girardi said, I have no idea. That mean terrible. It's
Speaker 5: one of those.
Speaker 1: Do you think his cognitive decline his dementia made him
Speaker 1: at all sympathetic.
Speaker 5: It was hard to feel sympathy after all of the
Speaker 5: clients explained exactly how this death had had ruined their lives.
Speaker 5: I think that the defenders were leaning hard into the
Speaker 5: appeal to jurors who had family members with dementia, which
Speaker 5: my grandmother has dementia, so I was thinking of her.
Speaker 5: But he talked about how his mother, who was a
Speaker 5: lawyer too, had dementia for a couple of years and
Speaker 5: eventually had to hang up the hat. And he was
Speaker 5: very emotional as he was saying this during closing arguments.
Speaker 5: But ultimately I don't think that that appeal worked. One
Speaker 5: thing that stood out to me during the trial was
Speaker 5: Girardi's appearance. He was wearing this gray blazer the whole time,
Speaker 5: and the blazer came in every day looking more crumpled.
Speaker 5: It seemed to me, and this is speculation, but it
Speaker 5: seemed like they had just thrown it into the washing
Speaker 5: machine every day, because it appeared to get smaller and
Speaker 5: more greased, and the lining was peeking out a lot
Speaker 5: more toward the end of the trial. So they were
Speaker 5: definitely either purposefully or not leaning into that appeal just
Speaker 5: using Girardi's own appearance.
Speaker 1: Did the prosecution acknowledge that Girardi has cognitive issues and
Speaker 1: how did they deal with it?
Speaker 5: Yes, they said, and now it's pretty clear that he
Speaker 5: has cognitive issues. But it's twenty twenty four now, and
Speaker 5: he didn't conduct the scheme in twenty twenty four. It
Speaker 5: was from twenty ten to twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: It was a twelve day trial and the jury came
Speaker 1: back with guilty verdicts on all counts after just four
Speaker 1: hours of deliberations. Did Girardi react when the verdict was read?
Speaker 5: He did not react as it was read in any
Speaker 5: significant way. But after he was standing up from the
Speaker 5: table and walking out, he had this kind of smile
Speaker 5: on his face that we had seen throughout the trial,
Speaker 5: which I describe as kind of wax in, and he
Speaker 5: walked out pretty steadily. One of the report orders asked
Speaker 5: him if he had comment on the verdict, and he
Speaker 5: chuckled and he said no, no, And may.
Speaker 1: You spoke to one of the jurors who said it
Speaker 1: wasn't a hard decision.
Speaker 5: He said that the facts were all there. We asked
Speaker 5: him if anyone on the jury needed to be convinced,
Speaker 5: and he said no. He's not perhaps representative of the
Speaker 5: entire group of jurors, but he made it sound like
Speaker 5: there was very little resistance inside the room.
Speaker 1: Did did jur say anything about the issue of Girardi's dementia.
Speaker 5: The juror said that they were not convinced by his
Speaker 5: neurologist testimony. They said that she met him in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty one and didn't have enough information about the case
Speaker 5: and what happened from twenty ten to twenty twenty. The
Speaker 5: juror basically said, you know, it is clear that Girardi's
Speaker 5: mind isn't all there now, but it's twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: it's years after what happened during the charged time period.
Speaker 5: But she showed as brain scans, including one where in
Speaker 5: the late twenty tens, Girardi's hippocampus, which is very responsible
Speaker 5: for memory function, had atrophied significantly, and it was among
Speaker 5: the bottom percentiles for the size of that brain structure
Speaker 5: in people his age. But she did also at one
Speaker 5: point say that she couldn't determine whether that diagnosis that
Speaker 5: she gave him in twenty twenty one could cause her
Speaker 5: to determine that he wasn't capable of carrying out a fraud.
Speaker 1: Maybe his cognitive decline will be a mitigating factor in
Speaker 1: his sentencing, though Girardi faces decades in prison when he's
Speaker 1: sentenced on December sixth, and the US attorney said the
Speaker 1: fact that he's older doesn't mean they won't seek prison time,
Speaker 1: so we'll have to see what prosecutors ask for. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show, Maya. That's Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law correspondent Mayas Bodo, and that's it for this edition
Speaker 1: of the bloomb Podcast. Remember you can always get the
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast,
Speaker 1: Slash Law. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg