Tom Girardi is officially under a conservatorship after his younger brother, Robert, filed the official documentation in court on Monday.
Robert is now in control of Tom’s person and his estate.
via People:
Court records obtained by PEOPLE cited Tom’s dementia diagnosis, which is classified as a “major neurocognitive disorder,” as the reason for the conservatorship.
Lawyers for both Robert and Tom had no comment when reached by PEOPLE.
The letters of conservatorship are a follow-up to a previous ruling made at a June 9 hearing, when Robert was appointed as Tom’s permanent conservator. The appointment left him responsible for deciding the appropriate care for Tom, 82, as well as giving him control over his estate.
“It’s obviously a heartbreaking situation for Robert, but we agree with the court’s rulings yesterday,” Robert’s lawyer, Nicholas Van Brunt, said in a statement to PEOPLE at the time.
During the hearing, Tom — the estranged husband of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Girardi — also spoke out about his conservatorship for the first time. “Obviously, I disagree with the conservatorship altogether,” he told the court, according to Law360.
“I think that we should put together the reasons why the conservatorship should be dissolved, and then we’ll address it, address the court,” the once-famed attorney continued. “Right now, I have nothing to say to the court.”
Despite his statements, however, the judge found that Tom “consents and does not object” to the conservatorship.
Earlier this year, Tom’s lawyers claimed that he “has had issues” with “mental competence” and it was later announced that he had been diagnosed with dementia and late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
He underwent a mental assessment on Feb. 26 as part of Robert’s petition to become his permanent conservator. Robert was granted a temporary conservatorship in February, which became permanent at the June hearing.Dr. Nathan Lavid, a Long Beach forensic and clinical psychiatrist, wrote a sworn declaration submitted to the Superior Court of California on March 10 stating that Tom was medically unfit to attend any court proceedings “for the foreseeable future,” according to a capacity declaration previously obtained by PEOPLE.
“Dementia impairs his ability to understand the hearing,” Lavid wrote. “His emotional distress is directly related to his dementia and exacerbated by his confusion.”
Prior to his diagnosis, Erika, 49, had filed for divorce from Tom, telling PEOPLE in November that it was not “a step taken lightly or easily.”
A month after she filed for divorce, Tom and Erika were sued for allegedly using the split to embezzle money and have since faced a slew of other legal controversies.
We’re honestly not sure if Tom has dementia or if this is some sort of long-game legal strategy.
