LOS ANGELES
The former longtime head of the accounting department at the now-shuttered Los Angeles plaintiffs’ personal injury law firm Girardi Keese pleaded guilty Friday to enabling the embezzlement of tens of millions of dollars from the firm’s injured clients and to embezzling money from Girardi Keese itself, federal officials stated.
Christopher Kazuo Kamon, 51, formerly of Encino and Palos Verdes and residing in the Bahamas at the time of his November 2022 arrest, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud.
(News Report a Month Ago)
From 2013 to December 2020, Kamon orchestrated a scheme involving co-conspirators who posed as “vendors” providing goods and services to the law firm Girardi Keese. Kamon arranged for these purported vendors to submit fraudulent invoices for goods and services that were never actually provided.
Girardi Keese paid these invoices, but the payments ultimately benefited Kamon personally, covering expenses such as construction projects at his residences in Palos Verdes and Encino.
Evidence presented at Tom Girardi’s recent trial revealed that part of Kamon’s scheme included payments totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars to a female companion. These payments, which included a $20,000 monthly stipend, came from the Girardi Keese operating accounts despite the woman having no employment relationship with the firm.
U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton has scheduled Kamon’s sentencing for January 31, where he faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each count.
Kamon has been in federal custody since December 2022.
Along with Girardi and David R. Lira, Girardi’s son-in-law and a former Girardi Keese lawyer, Kamon also faces federal fraud charges in Chicago. The trial, in that case, is scheduled for March 3, 2025.
IRS Criminal Investigation and the FBI investigated this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ali Moghaddas of the Corporate and Securities Fraud Strike Force and Scott Paetty of the Major Frauds Section are prosecuting this case.