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When Erika Jayne Girardi first joined The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in 2015, she shocked even her affluent castmates with her ostentatious displays of wealth, including a palatial mansion, private jet , extravagant jewelry, designer outfits styled by her personal glam squad, which included a creative director and choreographer for her aspiring career as a pop performer all bankrolled by her husband, a high-powered personal injury lawyer 33 years her senior.

Now, Tom Girardi, 85, is a defendant in a criminal trial that began in Los Angeles this week, charged by federal prosecutors in March 2022 with embezzling $15 million from vulnerable clients. He is also charged in Chicago with stealing millions more in settlement awards from Boeing to families of a plane crash that killed 189 people . (That case, tentatively scheduled to be tried next year, is on hold until the conclusion of his trial in California.)