ENCORE: The Pop Star and the Power Broker: Part 1 | 171

Scamfluencers

Wondery

Society & Culture

4.1 • 7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ll be back in four weeks with all-new Scamfluencers episodes. In the meantime, we’re returning to one of our favorites.

Tom Girardi dreams of being a do-gooder lawyer like his childhood hero on the TV show “Perry Mason.” When he starts his own legal firm in the 1960s, he does just that, representing clients against the huge corporations that wronged them. One of his biggest cases even gets the Hollywood treatment in the movie “Erin Brockovich.” But behind the scenes, Tom isn’t the hero he makes himself out to be. And when his extravagant home life with wife Erika Jayne gets broadcast on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” his fraudulent schemes will finally come under the microscope.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Scampfluencers fans, Sachi here. If you live for the outrageous stories and unbelievable
0:04.5	cons that we cover, you need Wendry Plus. It's like sitting in the room with us as we unravel
0:09.1	every twist, ad-free a week ahead of everyone else, and packed with exclusive content you won't
0:14.8	hear anywhere else. Start your free trial in the Wendry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify now.
0:20.4	We'll be back very soon with brand new episodes of scam influencers.
0:24.2	But today, we're revisiting one of the stories closest to our hearts, the story of
0:28.9	Real Housewives of Beverly Hills power couple, Erica Jane and Tom Gerardy.
0:34.1	Tom was a high-powered lawyer in L.A.
0:36.6	He built a reputation as someone willing to take on mega corporations on behalf of his clients, winning them millions.
0:43.8	He used his personal fortune to launch Erica Jane's singing career, and they both flaunted their fabulous lifestyle on Bravo for the world to see.
0:52.1	And, let's face it, Erica Jane was and is a star.
0:57.3	Instant classic housewife. It is so unfortunate what happened to her. Oh, it is very unfortunate.
1:04.3	And after decades as one of California's most respected and feared lawyers, some of Tom's
1:10.4	clients made explosive claims that he was
1:12.4	stealing their settlement money. As more and more clients spoke out, Tom's legal empire collapsed,
1:18.5	and his decades-long drift was exposed. Tom's firm went under, Erica Jane left him, and he was
1:24.6	found guilty of embezzling millions.
1:32.1	Tom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and his lawyers asked that he'd be allowed to serve his sentence in a memory care nursing home.
1:34.8	But there was a lot of speculation about his mental state and whether he was using his
1:39.6	diagnosis to avoid consequences.
1:42.5	Well, in June 2025, a federal judge ruled that Tom will serve his sentence
1:47.4	behind bars. And recently, on The Diamonds in the Rough podcast, Erica Jane said she heard about
	...

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