LOS ANGELES — Disbarred Los Angeles lawyer Tom Girardi funneled more than $1 million in gifts and payments to an investigator at the State Bar of California and the investigator’s wife, a University of Southern California accounting professor, according to a report released Friday.
The long-anticipated report, the result of a year-and-a-half investigation by a law firm working for the State Bar’s governing board, detailed how Girardi cultivated and sustained an “extensive network of connections at all levels” of the agency tasked with regulating California’s legal profession and described corruption beyond what is publicly known.
The investigator, Tom Layton, and his wife, Rose, received more than $600,000 in payments from Girardi, and Layton enjoyed the use of a credit card paid for by Girardi’s law firm, among other perks, according to the report.
