Just when you thought things were turning around for Erika Jayne, more dastardly deeds come crawling out of the woodwork. Honestly, it seemed like the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star had turned a corner, but with this news, she’s taking quite a few steps back.
As you know, Erika and estranged husband Tom Girardi have been facing legal issues since EJ filed for divorce in 2020. All of Tom’s past crimes slowly began trickling out and the stream has been nonstop for about three years. Now we have the latest drip-drop Erika has to deal with and it’s a big one. TMZ has the details.
American Express, she never left home without it
Here we go guys, Round 837 of Erika’s legal problems stemming from Big Tommy’s sketchy business practices. Apparently, EJ used Secret Service agents along with American Express to gouge funds from a designer in Hollywood.
Chris Psaila is suing Erika and two Secret Service agents. He claims EJ used her powers of corruption to influence the agents into prosecuting him over Erika’s alleged false accusations his costume company mischarged her over $800k.
As a result, Chris’ “life and career” are in shambles. The lawsuit states designer Chris said EJ provided permission for his store Marco Marco to charge her American Express card for the outfits she wears to pat the puss. The account holder of the card was none other than Big Tommy and Erika was noted as an authorized user.
Chris began working with Erika back in 2014. He said everything had been cool until she came up with the $800 to $900k fraudulent charges. The designer also stated EJ received every single piece of clothing including services.
Legal docs claim Erika and Tom paid agent Robert Savage, who was in command of the Secret Service’s Los Angeles office at the time, to conduct a criminal investigation into Chris and ultimately charge him with crimes. And if you know anything about Big Tommy’s former career, this allegation isn’t too farfetched.
Additionally, Chris said American Express believed Erika about the “false charges” and refunded her over $787k. This refund came without Chris having the opportunity to dispute her accusations. And that’s not all. Apparently American Express advised the Secret Service EJ was the victim in this scenario.
Here’s where it gets tricky
Get this, Chris’ suit said Big Tommy and Robert Savage were all buddy-buddy and Robert also had a “history of falsely billing for advance Presidential location scouting trips” which eventually got him booted out of the Secret Service altogether.
ALLEGEDLY (but probably) Tom bribed Robert to investigate poor Chris the designer, who was just living his life. It’s also said Robert was promised a nice check of $100k when the probe into Chris began. This honestly sucks and makes Erika look worse, if possible. But she’ll be denying knowledge of this in about 24 hours.
The close bond between Big Tommy and Robert wasn’t revealed when Chris faced prosecution. Go figure. Thankfully, the criminal case against him was dismissed after five years. Unfortunately, he wasn’t doing too well after it was over. His business suffered, Chris had “extreme emotional distress,” and “extreme emotional, psychological, and physical injuries” as a result.
Now Chris is fighting back and he seems incredibly pissed. He’s taking Erika, American Express, Robert Savage, and “others” to court and wants $18.2 million. American Express is all, “we would like to be removed from this narrative…” and released a statement.
American Express wants nothing to do with it
“In late 2016, federal law enforcement contacted American Express regarding its investigation into fraud by Mr. Psaila. While it is our policy to not comment on the specific activity on an individual Card Member’s accounts, we followed our regular processes and procedures throughout this investigation as we dealt with law enforcement. We did not initiate the investigation, nor did we proactively contact law enforcement, and the information law enforcement requested from us was typical in fraud investigations. We did not play any role in the criminal investigation of Mr. Psaila or his business other than responding to inquiries from law enforcement.”
Erika has not responded to requests for comment.
TELL US – DO YOU BELIEVE THE DESIGNER’S CLAIMS? WOULD ERIKA PARTICIPATE IN A FRAUDULENT SCHEME WITH AMEX?
