Erika Jayne is fighting to have a lawyer booted from her estranged husband’s bankruptcy case after the attorney filed documents alleging she wasn’t cooperating in the investigation.
In new documents, obtained by Page Six, Jayne’s lawyers assert that the “RHOBH” star “has been and remains willing to cooperate fully” with the investigation and demands that lawyer Ronald N. Richards be removed from the case for making “false and inflammatory social media posts and public statements” about her.
Jayne “is not a media fiction. She is a real person with rights, including the right to be treated fairly in these proceedings based on actual evidence and the law,” the documents state.
Her lawyers alleged that Richards’ social media posts “violate the ethical rules to which he is bound and that unfairly target [her] in an attempt to destroy her credibility before any claim is even brought against her in this proceeding.”
They also alleged that Richards “continued to harass” her “publicly through extra-judicial statements, including social media” to his over 16,000 followers and that he was engaging in YouTube interviews that harm the case.
Jayne included screenshots of his social media activity — specifically his tweets directed at Jayne and Girardi — in her filing.
Richards told Page Six in a statement on Friday, “Not a single professional of Erika’s has cooperated with our office regarding the Girardi Keese estate. We have filed numerous motions seeking documents and communications. This motion is designed to slow down our work. The Thomas Girardi estate is moving for relief from stay to pursue her in state court. This does not look like cooperation.
He added, “It is laughable to suggest that our 16,000 followers compared to Erika’s 417,000 followers in a City of 12,500,000 would somehow would have an impact on anything. The first amendment does not leave itself in the doorways of the courthouse and the motion is a transparent attempt to interfere with the Trustee’s choice of counsel. These first amendment arguments were previously raised by her other counsel and rejected. No gag order was issued. Simply submitting innocuous and inadmissible hearsay comments on publicly filed documents does not create any relevant or actionable information.”
This week, in documents filed by Richards, Jayne was accused of refusing to turn over her bank records to the bankruptcy trustee and using her “glam” lifestyle to conceal assets in the case.
The trustee also accused the “XXpen$ive” singer of creating a new company after she filed for divorce from Girardi, 82, in November 2020 and before he was accused of embezzling funds meant for Lion Air Flight 610 victims. The trustee reported to the court that they would investigate the alleged “successor” company as well.
It still remains unclear if Jayne knew whether now-disgraced attorney Girardi had allegedly stolen money from his clients to fund their lavish lifestyles as she denied having knowledge of his alleged crimes in the “RHOBH” Season 11 trailer.
She told her co-stars that “no one knows the answer [about what is going on] but him.”