“I would rather have her pay the victims than her lawyers.”
Erika Jayne’s legal team has “listened” to settlement offers from the opposing counsel suing her for $25 million … but it doesn’t seem like the talks have been all that productive.
“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star was sued by the trustee handling Tom Girardi’s law firm’s bankruptcy case, who believe Erika’s company — EJ Global — used funds from Tom’s firm to bankroll her career, paying for assistants, glam squad and more.
Attorney Ronald Richards, who represents the trustee, opened up about some of the alleged conversations between his team and Erika’s, telling Us Magazine they’ve been “actively talking” to her lawyers about a settlement.
“I gave her a week to just voluntarily return the money, but she never did. I can’t get into the settlement discussion, but we are trying to resolve the case with her attorney,” said Richards. “This is the $25 million that [Girardi’s] law firm paid on behalf of Erika to cover her expenses over a 12-year period.”
Richards said he was “hopeful” they could come to a resolution, so Erika doesn’t “waste any more money on legal fees or whoever is paying the fees. I would rather have her pay the victims than her lawyers.”
Erika’s attorney also spoke with the publication, confirming he’s “listened” to settlement conversations from Richards, who he also shaded for speaking to the press in the first place.
“Regarding settlement discussions, those are supposed to be confidential between counsel,” said Evan C. Borges. “It appears that my opposing counsel Mr. Richards has been discussing publicly what he calls settlement discussions. Here’s the truth: Mr. Richards has reached out and told me that he and the trustee want to settle. I have listened and will continue to listen. That’s it.”
“I can’t say enough that based on the evidence and law, Erika does not have liability for any of the claims against her,” he continued. “All the claims against Erika amount to efforts to blame her for the actions of others, including Girardi Keese and Tom Girardi.”
Richards has clearly been paying close attention to “RHOBH,” even tweeting on Friday that attorney-client privilege goes out the window “if you discuss your conversations with your attorneys on TV shows.”
He then shared a clip of Erika saying she “expects nothing” from her divorce and claiming her lawyers told her that was “the most courageous thing” they’d ever heard. “Do you believe the statement she wants nothing?” tweeted Richards, “The court filings that came afterwards do not support this claim. We have not seen anything ‘courageous’ towards the victims.”
He shared another clip from the same episode where Erika said she has “zero dollars” and would be walking out of the marriage with “nothing.”
“If you count receiving over $25,000,000 of your expenses paid as ‘walking away with nothing’ as well as savings, career, brand, and IP as nothing, then either this was for TV drama, insensitive as to the source that $, or just a statement that is inconsistent with today’s reality,” Richards tweeted.
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