Lara Sophia 
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend! Erika Jayne has scored a major legal victory after winning the appeal over the sale of her $750k diamond earrings.
Erika Jayne is victorious in her legal appeal over the sale of a pair of $750,000 diamond earrings that Tom Girardi gifted her many years ago.
The earrings were auctioned off last December as part of Tom Girardi’s ongoing bankruptcy case. The once-famed attorney is accused of embezzling millions from his clients via their settlement money.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star appealed the auction, claiming that the earrings were taken from her unlawfully.
On Wednesday, July 19, multiple outlets reported that Erika Jayne had won her appeal over the earrings.
“Erika [Jayne] wins appeal over auctioned earrings,” legal analyst Emily Baker announced on Twitter.
She continued, “The Court agreed with Erika that the earrings were not the bankruptcy estate’s property and, therefore, shouldn’t have been turned over to the bankruptcy trustee.”
Baker added that the bankruptcy court will have “to sort out” the fate of the earrings.
As RHOBH fans know, Erika Jayne was forced to turn over the diamond earring in June 2022 after a judge ruled that Tom purchased the earrings with “settlement funds from the trust account created for a class-action handled by Thomas’ firm Girardi Keese.” Erika immediately appealed the ruling but ultimately complied and turned over the earrings. At the time, attorney Ronald Richards, who previously worked on Tom Girardi’s bankruptcy case, let the world know that Erika planned to “defend herself and all the money, benefits, and gifts she received from Tom.”
Oddly enough, Richards and his wife, Lauren Boyette Richards, purchased the earrings for $250,000 when they went up for auction on December 7, 2022.
Erika said Richards and his wife were “obsessed” with her and that purchasing the earrings was a “trophy” for them. She then called the whole situation “weird.”
Despite Erika’s recent legal victory, there is some controversy around the diamond earrings Erika turned over to the trustee overseeing Tom’s bankruptcy case.
Tom purchased diamond earrings for Erika in 2004; however, two years later, they were stolen during a robbery at their former Pasadena mansion.
Then, in March 2007, M.M. Jewelers distributed replacement earrings. Yet, according to attorney Ronald Richards, those earrings were not the ones Erika turned over to the trustee in Tom’s bankruptcy case.
In 2022, Richards tweeted, “The stones in the possession of the auctioneer are not the same stones described in the March 2, 2007 sales invoice.”
When it comes locating the real diamond earrings Tom purchased in 2007, Richards says they are working on recovering them but that “it is a mystery in progress.”
As for what happens next, it seems that Erika may not be getting her diamond earrings back but will instead get the proceeds from the December 2022 auction. Not sure Erika will be happy with that.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is reportedly returning to Bravo for season 13 in late 2023. Some reports suggest season 13 will premiere on November 1.
