Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne has been named in a $2.1 million lawsuit, accusing her of “aiding and abetting” in estranged husband Tom Girardi’s alleged embezzlement “scheme.” Her lawyer has since denied her involvement and claimed that the “focus should” instead be on Girardi.
Jayne is accused of knowing about the financial “scheme,” where Girardi allegedly kept a settlement from a law partner and his client Kathleen Bajgrowicz, who is the mother NFL player Chuck Osborne, per NBC News. He represented Bajgrowicz in a case against the league, regarding Osborne’s death in 2012, and is accused of not distributing the agreed settlement money to Manuel Miller or the player’s mother.
The lawsuit claims that the Jayne “aided and abetted Girardi’s breach of fiduciary duty and has direct liability for participating in and facilitating the conduct,” and that the alleged scheme helped her with her “notoriously lavish lifestyle chronicled on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
She’s being accused of “financial elder abuse” and the lawsuit wants her and her company to be responsible for “damages caused by their tortuous conduct.”
“The complaint is another misguided effort to blame Erika for the conduct of others in which she had no part,” Erika’s lawyer Evan Borges told NBC News. “Erika has no law degree and never worked at or managed her former husband’s law firm. Whatever Mr. Girardi or others at his law firm did or said to the plaintiffs in this case, Erika had no knowledge or role in any of it.”
