Here’s how Erika Jayne’s ex-husband is doing in prison and what happened between them
She's just moved on with John McPhee
Erika Jayne is now in a relationship with John McPhee, but she was in a long-term marriage several years ago with businessman Tom Girardi. Four years before he went to prison for four counts of wire fraud in August 2024, Erika filed for divorce, alleging infidelity.
The divorce has not yet been finalised due to Tom’s legal and mental incompetence, as all divorce proceedings must go through his conservator, but Erika announced her separation from Tom after 21 years of marriage together in November 2020.
The following month, a major lawsuit was filed against them both, accusing Tom of embezzling millions of dollars in settlement funds from his law firm, Girardi Keese, that were meant for victims of a fatal plane crash. It was really messy, and played out on RHOBH.
The following year, Girardi was diagnosed with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Erika was dismissed from the suit. Her ex-husband was found guilty and is serving seven years and three months behind bars. He was served on his 86th birthday.
He’s been in prison for six months, having first began the sentence in July. Erika told her co-star Sutton Stracke on RHOBH: “I said this to somebody the other day, I just kind of hoped he’d die before he’d go to prison, just so he could get it over with.”
“To see him walk down the courtroom steps like that knowing he’s going to die in prison, that’s heavy on any level,” she said. Erika has been single for five years as her divorce is ongoing, but is now in a relationship with John McPhee.
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Erika first met Tom while she was waitressing at a restaurant he regularly went to. “What was really important to me was my relationship,” Erika said. “He was a grown man. It really was two people coming together who really enjoy each other’s company.”
She asked to be paid spousal support from Tom and to terminate the court’s ability to award spousal support to her ex. Erika revealed the pair did not have a prenup, but Tom asked to terminate the court’s ability to award spousal support to Erika.
A source close to the couple told People, “The reason she divorced Tom is because he was cheating on her with multiple women,” before adding that Erika claimed “she’s known about his infidelity for years” but “wanted to try and save the marriage.”
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“When she was performing her last week on Broadway, he left her high and dry and was frolicking around town instead of supporting her and attending her shows. She realised she would never be a priority to him, and that was her breaking point,” the insider said.
On a July 2021 episode of RHOBH, Erika revealed she “found the evidence” of Tom’s “years-long” affairs through text messages and pictures on his phone. “I knew a lot because it was so hard to hide and, you know, he was sloppy,” Erika said, noting Tom didn’t deny it.
A BOP forensic psychologist testified at a June hearing, during which a federal judge in Los Angeles heard evidence about whether Girardi should be sentenced to prison or a suitable medical facility and about how prisons can safely house people with dementia.
“They determined that he still possesses a baseline ability to function on a day-to-day basis, that he currently retains his independence as to his activities of daily living,” U.S. Dist. Judge Josephine L. Staton said from the bench in Los Angeles in June.
In the Seal Beach dementia ward, Girardi has spent most days sitting alone at a table scribbling “hundreds of pages of unintelligible notes” on a pad, according to a letter his brother, Robert, wrote the judge. He added that Tom believes he is still practicing as a lawyer.
He is now serving time at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Los Angeles, California, with his condition expected to decline over time. Tom had a month-and-a-half stay at the Butner Medical Center, but had difficulty at times finding his way back to his bunk.
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