According to court documents via Page Six, Fulton claims the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star’s estranged husband, Tom Girardi, and his ex-colleagues Samantha Gold and John Kelley Courtney misappropriated her settlement funds to support their personal lifestyles.
The 55-year-old actress was involved in a car accident in January 2016 and sustained severe injuries as a result. Soon after, she sought legal representation from Girardi & Keese law firm.
The case resulted in a confidential settlement agreement filed on March 18, 2019, with a settlement amount of $924,300.
Gold was Fulton’s primary counsel, and Courtney was a senior attorney on the case. However, Girardi was the owner and controlling member of their firm at the time.
According to the lawsuit, Fulton learned on July 14, 2022, through “newly discovered financial documents” where her settlement funds actually went. The documents allegedly revealed that on April 8, 2019, Fulton’s settlement check had been deposited into a Girardi & Keese bank account without her consent.
“This was a complete outright forgery as [Fulton] never endorsed this check and certainly never agreed to have it deposited,” the lawsuit claims, according to Page Six. “This negotiated check was in fact a forgery and a lie. The check was never held in trust but spent. It is beyond shocking and the pale that the firm would conceal the arrival of the check and not obtain Ms. Fulton’s endorsement as required by law.”
The lawsuit claims that Fulton only received a total of $190,000 of her settlement between April 2019 and September 2020, which her lawyers claim was part of Girardi’s pattern “to dupe his clients into waiting for money by dribbling small payments.” She also received an advance of $5,000, leaving a $744,300 balance, which is the amount she is seeking in damages.
Fulton’s attorneys claim there is proof that the settlement funds had been disbursed to Girardi & Keese in three separate checks: $214,000 on April 26, 2019, $1 million on April 12, 2019, and $300,000 on April 10, 2019.
Jayne is named in the lawsuit because Fulton discovered her funds were allegedly “diverted to Erika” via the Bravo reality star’s company, EJ Global, and later transferred to Pretty Mess Inc.
According to the lawsuit, Fulton believes that Jayne and Girardi would use funds “as their own assets” to “pay for their lavish lifestyle.”
“The funds were treated as community property,” the documents alleges, citing the $25 million deposited into EJ Global — for which Jayne is being sued in Girardi & Keese’s separate bankruptcy case.
“Erika used the money to pay off her expenses,” the suit claims via Page Six. “For at least 12 years, all of her expenses were paid by Girardi Keese as she was generating them. No one withdrew money from the firm other than Erika Girardi.”
Ronald Richards, one of the attorneys representing Fulton, says that his client like “many people in Hollywood trusted Tom and Erika in their legal matters.”
Richards noted that Jayne and Girardi were a “public couple who preached wealth and success.”
“Erika profited off of these funds, which [were] used to provide content for the ‘Housewives’ show to which she was paid for. She directly received vendor payments from these funds and personally benefited from the misappropriation of our client’s settlement,” Richards told Page Six.
Meanwhile, Jayne’s attorney told the outlet that he hasn’t seen the full complaint yet, but believes that two “fundamental undisputed facts” will emerge from “all the lawsuits that try to make Erika responsible for the actions” of her estranged husband.
Evan C. Borges first notes that his client is a “non-lawyer” who had “no role” in the actions of Girardi or others dealing with the disbarred lawyer’s clients or finances, and second she “thought she was married to an extremely wealthy attorney with a financially successful law firm.”
“It’s a distraction tactic and specious for lawyers representing former [Girardi & Keese] clients to use Erika’s lifestyle and persona on a ‘Housewives’ show as an excuse to sue her,” Jayne’s attorney added. “The focus should be on Tom Girardi and, where supported by evidence, the lawyers, accountants, and financiers who enabled his misconduct and wrongdoing.”
Photo Credit: Bravo Media/NBCUniversal; Courtesy via Christina Fulton/Instagram
