I mentioned Tom Girardi’s son in law David Lira before in the discussion of the Girardi Keese bankruptcy case. Lira is married to Tom’s daughter Jacqueline Lira.
And David was a very high-ranking attorney at Girardi Keese. Not only that, Tom and David did something super shady with at least one case. Without going in to too much detail, the case was a lawsuit over the rightful owners of $5 million dollars in state lottery winnings. More than $242,658 from a Lotto settlement that that was supposed to be deposited into the firms’ account as payment for services. Instead, they assigned their attorney fees to their wives aka Erika Jayne and Jacquelin Lira in order to avoid paying state taxes on the money.
Lotto money in CA comes in annuity payments so lawyer fees to Lira and Jayne were in annuity payments.
I have suspected for a while that Lira is far more involved in all of this than the media is letting on. So I am not shocked at this new revelation. He is a named defendant in an ongoing federal lawsuit against Tom.
Per the State Bar, David Lira, was secretly working in private practice with L.A.-based prosecutor, Dale Nowicki, for over a year, according to a report by Law360. Why is Nowicki important?
Because he was a prosecutor at the State Bar and his supervisor was “overseeing the bar’s prosecution of Girardi for allegedly stealing from clients’ settlements.”
The State Bar of California placed Nowicki on “administrative leave” as a result of the investigation and his failure to disclose to the Bar that he was working on the side with Lira.
Lira left Girardi Keese — conveniently as the walls began closing in on the firm. He currently works as a Trial Attorney at Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack.
Also interesting to note, Lira filed a claim AGAINST Girardi & Keese for reimbursement of $150,000 of his legal fees. He had been claiming in numerous cases he can’t be sued because he can’t sue his father in law.
David was named in the allegation of misappropriated funds in the Lion Air crash.
A judicial inquiry was launched asking whether “their (Lira and Griffin) knowing of nonpayment” of certain client settlement funds gave “them an obligation to do something more than what they did” to ensure the firm’s compliance with the court’s orders.
This inquiry is till ongoing.
It seems odd to me that Girardi was disbarred but Lira was not and perhaps this convenient connection was why.
So look for more news on Lira to come out.