The sensational ABC News headline ‘ Original special for Hulu, “The Housewife and the Hustler” – about the legal issues of Erika “Jayne” Girardi, of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and her ex-husband, powerful former lawyer Tom Girardi – obscures an agenda persuasive and serious, who first Monday.

It lasts a little over an hour and largely examines Tom Girardi’s alleged misdeeds – which is a good thing, because when it comes to Erika, the reach of “Housewife and the Hustler” goes beyond its scope. scope. Erika Girardi’s exaggerated spending habits; her rag-to-riches story about a dancer stint at a New Jersey strip club to her marriage to a much older multi-millionaire lawyer in Los Angeles; and most importantly, how Tom Girardi’s questionable legal practices put her in legal and financial jeopardy, are all reworked here in what amounts to music video work, with little new information provided. (As Variety observed, Erika puts herself in danger by continuing to appear on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” which recently launched its 11th season.) Neither Erika nor Tom Girardi responded to a request for comment.

“The Housewife and the Hustler” – which is more pointed when focusing on the alleged crimes of Tom Girardi – sells short, starting with Danielle Staub, a former actress of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey”. Staub, known to fly away, not for her insight, esteps into the screen against a whitewashed background, dressed in white herself, and, after the camera leans over her spiked high heels, announces her tenuous connection to the subject: “Erika Jayne, I’ve seen it on the show, and I’ve also worked with her on ‘Watch What Happens Live’ a couple of times. I didn’t have the best vibe from her – I know a lot of fake people, and it turns out she’s just one of them.

It’s a bad start, to say the least.

At first, “Housewife and the Hustler” struggles to establish its raison d’être by focusing on Erika and her fame – a thin premise. But once started, the program, executive produced by ABC News’ Steven Baker, offers a poignant and powerful recap of the allegations against Tom Girardi and the implosion of his law firm Girardi Keese, which was forced into bankruptcy proceedings in January. The special accomplishes this by interviewing some people who claim he stole the settlement money they claim is theirs by right.

Here are five enlightening moments from “The Housewife and the Hustler”.

Girardi Keese has always been known to be flashy, but Erika’s displays of wealth on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” took him to another level

According to “Housewife and the Hustler,” Girardi Keese was known for its lavish Christmas parties and chic annual conference in Las Vegas. Tom was so connected that aspiring judges would come closer to him, as would politicians: California Governor Gavin Newsom appeared on Andy Cohen’s Bravo talk show “Watch What Happens Live” in 2016, and because Tom had been “generous” to him with donations, Newsom proclaimed that Erika was “my real favorite housewife”.

But when Erika joined “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” in 2015, some people in Los Angeles’ legal community cringed at what they saw. Chris Darden, OJ Simpson’s former trial attorney, expresses his surprise to see Tom on “Beverly Hills” while his wife watched the show. Kim Archie, who worked for Girardi as a legal consultant but later became a client, says lawyers who represent grieving people should have a sense of “decorum.”

And lawyer Brian Kabateck calls Girardi’s excesses “appalling” on the show and specifically quotes Erika bragging about “Beverly Hills” about their two private planes.

“We are chasing the man! ” Kabateck said. ” You do not want to be the man.”

After winning a big settlement, Tom Girardi is accused of stealing millions of dollars from a family in San Bruno, California.

In 2010, the Ruigomez home in San Bruno, California, caught fire due to a gas line that blows up part of the city. Joe Ruigomez, then 19, was watching a soccer game with his girlfriend when it happened and barely came out alive – his girlfriend was later found dead. Joe suffered severe burns and will suffer from surgeries and health complications for the rest of his life.

Pacific Gas & Electric, which Tom Girardi had successfully sued in the case that inspired the movie “Erin Brockovich”, was found guilty and settled with the Ruigomez family for a large undisclosed sum of money.

After the 2013 settlement, an amount the Ruigomez were happy with, Tom told the family he would invest the money for them, handing it out monthly. Kathy ruigomez plays Tom’s voicemail messages and displays an email from him, saying that the monthly payments to Joe, then in his twenties, were part of an “agreement I had with the court” and that it was “strictly for his protection”.

The mediator in the lawsuit told ABC News that Tom’s claim that payments should be monthly is “false” and that he was “unaware of Mr. Girardi’s actions”.

People who questioned Tom’s ethics had nowhere to turn

In 2014, Kim Archie’s son, Paul, died in a motorcycle accident, and due to his association with Tom, no other lawyer has filed a wrongful death lawsuit, she says: “They don’t didn’t want to step on Tom Girardi’s feet. “

She and Kathy thought there was nothing they could do about it: Tom Girardi was linked to the police, all the way to the top, and the DA’s office, the California attorney general and the bar.

“Who are we going to call, like Ghostbusters?” Archie asks.

It was the recent Edelson PC lawsuit that publicly blew up Tom Girardi’s alleged financial malfeasance.

In a lawsuit in early December 2020, a month after Erika announced she was filing for divorce, Chicago law firm Edelson PC sued Tom and Erika Girardi, along with others. The lawsuit alleged that Tom robbed “the widows and orphans who lost loved ones in the tragic crash of Lion Air Flight 610 – in order to continue to fund his lavish lifestyle and Erika’s in Beverly Hills.”

Jay Edelson, another lawyer in the Lion Air lawsuit, attempts in the lawsuit to obtain money both for his clients and for himself.

From Indonesia, Bias Ramadhan, whose mother died in the plane crash, is interviewed. He shows his emails asking for their money, one of which says, “Mr. Tom never responds to my email.

“We are the victims here,” he said. “Not him, Tom – not his wife.”

The Ruigomez lawsuit against To M is what forced him to admit in a deposition that all his money is gone

According to Kim Archie, Tom completely stopped paying Joe Ruigomez in January 2017. So the Ruigomez ended up winning a lawsuit against Tom, and he agreed to pay them $ 12 million in installments, but stopped after the first payment of $ 1 million. Because he stopped paying, the settlement became a judgment and Tom gave a deposition on September 23, 2020.

You will see him and hear him say: “At one point I had $ 80 million, or $ 50 million in cash. Everything is gone.

“I also had a stock portfolio of around $ 50 million,” he continues, “and it was all gone.”

Kathy Ruigomez is stunned. “Broke? But not customer money, right?

Tom Girardi is now involuntarily bankrupt, and is now under guardianship, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Bankruptcy trustees are liquidating its assets in order to pay off its creditors, which will likely start with its lenders. This all takes place in court, but part of it will also play out in this season of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” which has just arrived at the Girardis’ divorce – and its cause – from the this week’s episode.

“If you asked me in 2019 who would pay whom in this divorce, I would probably say Erika would get a lot of money from Tom,” says Brandon Lowrey, reporter at Law360, on images of Erika’s ornate jewelry. “But at this point, she’s earning more than Tom, and she probably has more assets than him. She could come out on top, or she could get dragged and end up with a lot of debt. “