HOLLYWOOD COSTUME MERCHANT SUES ERIKA (JAYNE) GIRARDI, AMERICAN EXPRESS, SECRET SERVICE SPECIAL AGENTS, AND OTHERS, FOR ALLEGEDLY VIOLATING CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND MALICIOUS PROSECUTION

LOS ANGELES , Aug. 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- While facing false federal credit card fraud charges for nearly five years, Hollywood costume merchant Christopher Psaila's business was nearly destroyed and his life was devastated. Co-owner of Marco Marco, Mr. Psaila's business lost clients, retailers, and employees, resulting in lost profits and goodwill totaling tens of millions of dollars. His younger brother tragically drowned, and the charges impeded his ability to support his father as he was dying of cancer. Mr. Psaila's father and brother both died while he was falsely accused of serious crimes. Adding to the devastation, Mr. Psaila and his husband were preparing to adopt an infant, but an adoption agency told them they could not proceed because of the pending charges. 

Mr. Psaila's attorneys, David S. McLane, Marilyn E. Bednarski, and Barrett S. Litt, of McLane, Bednarski & Litt, LLP, in Los Angeles; Illinois solo practitioner Bruce B. Bealke; and Los Angeles solo practitioner Stanley I. Greenberg, today filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Erika Girardi, also known as "Erika Jayne," the estranged wife of disgraced and disbarred lawyer Thomas V. Girardi, two former U.S. Secret Service supervisory agents and a current special agent, American Express Company, and other individual defendants engaged in malicious prosecution and conspiracy and violated his constitutional rights.

The "case reflects the corruption of the federal judicial system by Secret Service agents," the complaint filed in Federal Court in Los Angeles asserts. It seeks at least $18.2 million in general damages and unspecified punitive damages. Mr. Psaila also submitted a related Federal Tort Claims Act administrative claim against the Secret Service for $75 million. If the government denies the claim, Mr. Psaila intends to file a companion FTCA lawsuit with the lawsuit filed today.

Beginning in 2014, today's suit alleges that Erika Girardi purchased numerous costumes and clothing for herself and her performing entourage for stage shows and appearances, many of which were documented on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Erika Girardi authorized Mr. Psaila and Marco Marco to charge her credit card for purchases that she or her assistants, defendants Laia Ribatallada and Michael Minden, made using her American Express card on her husband Tom Girardi's account. At her initial costume fitting in 2014, Erika Girardi dismissed Mr. Psaila's offer to send an invoice, saying it "would not be necessary," even though Mr. Psaila customarily provided his customers with invoices, the lawsuit states.

According to the suit, for approximately 30 months up to November 2016, Erika Girardi never disputed a charge. Suddenly, in late 2016, at the same time Tom Girardi and his law firm were going bankrupt and he was allegedly defrauding clients of tens of millions of dollars, Erika Girardi falsely claimed more than $800,000 in fraudulent credit card charges. In reality, Mr. Psaila and Marco Marco provided her with every piece of clothing and services charged and possess documented proof of all 132 transactions.

Coupled with the false accusation, Erika and Tom Girardi allegedly used Tom Girardi's undisclosed personal and attorney-client relationship with defendant Robert Savage, then the Special Agent in Charge of the Secret Service in Los Angeles, to weaponize the agency to maliciously prosecute Psaila. American Express and its fraud investigator Peter Grimm, allegedly accepted Erika Girardi's false statements of unauthorized charges without any fair or reasonable investigation of her claims. In early 2017, American Express refunded the Girardis $787,117 without allowing Mr. Psaila to dispute her claims, without seeking to recover the money from Marco Marco, and without any penalty, suspension, or termination of their merchant privileges. Mr. Psaila and Marco Marco processed thousands of American Express transactions over nearly 20 years and had only two customer chargebacks, establishing a track record of honest and legitimate customer dealings, which American Express and the Secret Service deliberately ignored.

After Erika Girardi falsely accused Mr. Psaila in November 2016, Savage and Secret Service Agents Steve Scarince and Kenneth Henderson allegedly, without any substantiation or probable cause, agreed to and directed the Secret Service investigation of her claims, including conducting a disruptive and publicly humiliating search at two Marco Marco locations in January 2017. In December 2016, the suit alleges, Tom Girardi substituted in as counsel for Savage, who was a plaintiff in a lawsuit claiming defective brakes against Volkswagen, just as the case was being settled. In addition to a longstanding personal relationship, first reported in February this year by the Los Angeles Times, Tom Girardi allegedly bribed Savage by promising to personally pay him $100,000, and eventually paying him $7,500, to compensate Savage for his damages in the Volkswagen case.

Neither the personal relationship between the Girardis and Savage, nor Tom Girardi's representation and personal payment to Savage, were ever disclosed to Mr. Psaila and his attorney before or after he was indicted in April 2017. When Savage separated from the Secret Service in 2018, he had allegedly been found to have faked Presidential advance trips to receive free services for himself and other agents at luxury hotels and golf courses, which also was not disclosed, according to the complaint. Any disclosure of the personal and financial relationships would have been grounds for Savage's recusal, if not the entire Los Angeles Secret Service office, the suit alleges.

Because Tom Girardi, who has since been indicted on federal fraud charges in Los Angeles and Chicago, was facing mounting pressure to pay for his wife's extravagant lifestyle and clothing, the Girardis had a compelling motive to falsely claim that Mr. Psaila and Marco Marco had defrauded them, according to the lawsuit.

"The refund to the Girardis justified the prosecution – the prosecution justified the refund," it states.

However, the lawsuit includes an exhibit documenting each of the seven American Express transactions that the indictment alleged were fraudulent. The records include time-stamped invoices, emails, text messages, sketches, material receipts, and proof of delivery. Mr. Psaila and Marco Marco possess similar evidentiary proof, including online photos and videos showing Erika Girardi wearing the corresponding outfits, for all 132 transactions. It establishes beyond all dispute that the transactions Erika Girardi, Ribatallada, and Minden claimed were fraudulent, in fact, were authorized and legitimate and all the costumes and services were provided. Further, the suit alleges, the Secret Service had access to, but recklessly ignored, the evidence after seizing Marco Marco's computers.

Faced with this proof and without ever meeting or answering certain discovery obligations and demands to disclose exculpatory and impeachment information, the United States Attorney's Office in Los Angeles voluntarily dismissed the indictment against Mr. Psaila in September 2021, nearly five years after the ordeal began.

"The Secret Service and United States should have never presented the case to the grand jury for indictment, and never proceeded with the prosecution," the lawsuit states. "Any investigation at all, or review of the evidence … seized ... in January 2017, would have uncovered that Marco Marco and Psaila had documented proof that all costumes and services had been supplied to [Erika] Girardi, that all the charges were authorized, and that no fraud occurred," the complaint states.

The lawsuit asserts claims against Savage, Scarince, then the top Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Secret Service in Los Angeles, and Henderson, the case agent, for violating Mr. Psaila's Constitutional rights. It alleges that they recklessly disregarded the truth and were indifferent to Mr. Psaila's innocence and acted without probable cause. The suit alleges malicious prosecution against Erika Girardi, Ribatallada, and Minden; aiding and abetting the malicious prosecution against American Express and Grimm, the fraud investigator, and conspiracy to commit malicious prosecution against Erika Girardi, Ribatallada, Minden, American Express, and Grimm.

The lawsuit contains merely allegations, which must be proven by a preponderance of the evidence.

SOURCE McLane, Bednarski & Litt LLP