Karen Weitzul: Full Biography, Marriage to Thomas Girardi, and Life in 2026
She was married to Thomas Girardi before anyone outside California knew his name.
Karen Weitzul wed him in August 1964. He was a young attorney building a practice. She was a Wisconsin-born woman who had moved to Southern California with her family in the early 1950s. The marriage lasted years. The divorce came long before Girardi became nationally notorious.
By the time Girardi’s fraud collapsed into public view — the stolen client funds, the disbarment, the criminal conviction, the dementia diagnosis — Karen Weitzul had been out of his life for decades. She did not appear on television. She did not give interviews. She went nowhere near the wreckage.
That choice defines her public record as much as anything else about her.
Quick Bio Table
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Karen Weitzul |
| Born | Approximately 1941, Wisconsin, USA |
| Age (2026) | Approximately 84–85 years old |
| Birthplace | Wisconsin, USA |
| Family relocated | Early 1950s — Wisconsin to Southern California |
| Father | Edward A. Weitzul (1909–1974) — civil engineer; railroad and infrastructure work |
| Mother | Mary R. Weitzul (1916–2007) — later remarried as Mary R. DuMont |
| Education | Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles (confirmed across multiple sources) |
| Married | Thomas Girardi — August 1964 |
| Divorced | Exact year not confirmed; described as “decades” before Girardi’s 2020 legal collapse |
| Children | Disputed — most sources say none confirmed; one source claims a daughter named Camille |
| Current location | Pasadena, California (reported; not primary-confirmed) |
| Net worth (estimate) | $1 million–$2 million (unverified; likely reflects alimony settlement) |
| Social media | None confirmed |
| Current status | Private life; alive as of most recent confirmed reporting |
Key Conflicts in the Record
Several facts about Karen Weitzul are disputed or unverified. These must be addressed before the biography continues.
Children: The majority of sources — including nightmag.co.uk, balzaromagazine.co.uk, and digitaljournalusa.co.uk — state that no confirmed children exist from her marriage to Thomas Girardi. One source — okaymagzines.com — claims she has a daughter named Camille who maintains a private life. This specific claim appears in only one source with no corroboration. It is flagged here as unverified.
Divorce year: No source confirms a specific year for the divorce. All sources describe it as having occurred “decades” before Girardi’s 2020 legal collapse. Some describe the marriage as lasting “several years.” The exact duration and divorce date are not in any confirmed public record.
Loyola Marymount University: Multiple sources confirm this as her university. Whether she completed a degree and in what field is not confirmed in any primary source.
Current location: Multiple sources report Pasadena, California. No primary document confirms this — it is reported consistently but not verified.
Death claims: nightmag.co.uk ends with “Karen is survived by her…” — suggesting she may have died. No other source confirms her death. This appears to be a copy-paste error or AI-generated error from a template. As of most recent confirmed reporting in 2026, she is believed to be alive.
Early Life: Wisconsin to California
Karen Weitzul was born around 1941 in Wisconsin. Her family was Midwestern in background and values — discipline, education, and stability were consistent themes in how sources describe her upbringing, though these descriptions are general rather than sourced to specific accounts from her.
Her father, Edward A. Weitzul, was a civil engineer who worked on railroad and infrastructure projects. He was born in 1909 and died in 1974. He is the most specifically documented member of her family — his professional background is cited by primeleaf.co.uk and laaster.com, both of which appear to have drawn from public genealogy records.
Her mother, Mary R. Weitzul, was born in 1916 and died in 2007. After Karen’s father died, Mary remarried — becoming Mary R. DuMont. This remarriage expanded Karen’s family circle.
In the early 1950s, the Weitzul family relocated from Wisconsin to Southern California. This was part of a broader postwar migration of professionals and families seeking opportunity in California’s rapidly growing economy. The move placed Karen in the Los Angeles area during her formative years.
She attended Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Multiple sources confirm this. She is reported to have been socially active on campus, with primeleaf.co.uk noting she was selected as a finalist in a university homecoming event. Whether this is a confirmed fact or a biographical embellishment is difficult to assess — no primary source is cited for this specific detail.
Thomas Girardi: Who He Was and Why the Name Matters
Thomas Vincent Girardi was born on June 3, 1939, in Denver, Colorado. He grew up in Los Angeles and attended Loyola Law School. He built one of the most successful plaintiffs’ law firms in California — Girardi and Keese — winning landmark cases including litigation against Pacific Gas and Electric that inspired the film Erin Brockovich (2000).
At his peak, he was one of the most powerful trial attorneys in the United States. He had political connections, a palatial home in Pasadena, and a reputation for winning cases that other firms refused to take.
He was also, as federal prosecutors later established, a fraudster who stole from his own clients.
The collapse began publicly in late 2020 when Girardi and Keese was accused of misappropriating settlement funds meant for families of victims of the Lion Air crash. More fraud allegations followed. Girardi was disbarred by the California State Bar in 2022. In 2023, he was indicted on federal wire fraud charges. His defense was complicated by a dementia diagnosis — his attorneys argued he could not stand trial. In 2024, he was convicted on multiple counts of fraud and sentenced.
Throughout all of this, Karen Weitzul’s name surfaced only tangentially — as his first wife, from a marriage that ended long before any of the fraud took place. No public evidence connects her to his crimes. No source suggests she had knowledge of or involvement in his later conduct.
The Marriage: August 1964
Karen Weitzul and Thomas Girardi married in August 1964. This date is confirmed across all major sources and is one of the few specific details in this biography that can be treated as reliable.
At the time of the marriage, Girardi was building his legal practice. Karen was a young woman who had grown up in Southern California and completed her university education. The marriage was one of professional ambition on his part and domestic stability on hers — that is the consistent picture across all sources, though it is drawn from general characterization rather than primary accounts.
How long the marriage lasted is not confirmed. Sources describe it as ending “decades” before his 2020 legal collapse. Some say it lasted “several years.” One source suggests the early 1970s as an approximate divorce period — but no document confirms this.
The divorce produced legal records connected to spousal support. Her name appears in court filings related to alimony — this is confirmed by nightmag.co.uk and is one of the few primary-record connections available. The specific terms of any alimony arrangement are not public.
Girardi’s Other Marriages: Context
Karen Weitzul was the first of Thomas Girardi’s three confirmed marriages.
His second wife was Georgia Brizendine. Details of that marriage and its duration are not well documented in public sources focused on Karen.
His third wife — and the one who made him nationally famous through reality television — was Erika Girardi, known professionally as Erika Jayne. She is a singer and television personality who appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. They married in 2000. She filed for divorce in November 2021, shortly before the full scale of Girardi’s fraud became public. Whether she had knowledge of his conduct is a matter that has been legally and publicly examined — but that story belongs to Erika Jayne’s biography, not Karen Weitzul’s.
Karen Weitzul predates all of it. She was out of his life before Girardi became famous, before the PG&E case, before Erin Brockovich, before Real Housewives.
Private Life: What Is Known After the Divorce
Following her divorce from Thomas Girardi, Karen Weitzul maintained complete privacy. This is the most consistent confirmed fact in her biography.
She does not have a social media presence on any confirmed platform. She has not given interviews. She has not appeared on television. She has not written about her marriage.
Multiple sources report she lives in Pasadena, California — the same city where Girardi maintained his most famous residence. Whether this is still accurate as of 2026 is not confirmed by any primary source.
She is approximately 84 or 85 years old. Her estimated net worth of $1 million to $2 million likely reflects alimony settlement proceeds from the divorce — no other income source is confirmed in any public record.
The question of whether she has a daughter named Camille — raised by one source — remains unresolved. No corroboration exists. No birth record or named confirmation is available in any source reviewed for this article.
Thomas Girardi’s Collapse: Her Absence Is the Story
When Thomas Girardi’s fraud became public, journalists and entertainment reporters began reconstructing the full arc of his life. That reconstruction surfaced Karen Weitzul’s name.
She said nothing. She appeared nowhere. She made no public statement.
That silence is not unusual for a private person. But it is worth noting in the context of how the story unfolded. Erika Jayne — wife number three — was filmed, photographed, interviewed, deposed, and covered extensively. Wife number two barely registered in public coverage. Wife number one — Karen Weitzul — made no appearance at all.
She was there at the beginning. She had been gone for decades by the end. Whatever she thought of what Thomas Girardi became, she kept it entirely to herself.
What Is Confirmed vs. What Is Unclear
Confirmed: born approximately 1941 in Wisconsin; family relocated to Southern California in early 1950s; father Edward A. Weitzul (1909–1974), civil engineer; mother Mary R. Weitzul (1916–2007), later Mary R. DuMont; attended Loyola Marymount University; married Thomas Girardi August 1964; name appears in court filings related to spousal support; divorced Girardi — exact year unconfirmed; no confirmed involvement in Girardi’s later fraud; believed to live in Pasadena, California; no confirmed social media presence; alive as of most recent confirmed reporting.
Not confirmed: exact birth date; specific degree from Loyola Marymount; exact divorce year; whether she has a daughter named Camille; current precise location; net worth beyond estimate; any career or employment history.
Final Word: She Was There at the Beginning and Gone Before It Ended
Karen Weitzul married Thomas Girardi in 1964 when he was nobody. She divorced him long before he became somebody. She was entirely absent when he became notorious.
That is a specific and unusual position in a story that produced enormous public coverage. The third wife became a television personality. The law firm became a documentary subject. The fraud became a federal conviction. Karen Weitzul became a footnote in court filings about alimony.
She chose that. She maintained it. She is in her mid-eighties now, living privately in California, with no confirmed social media and no public statement on record.
The confirmed record is sparse. What it shows clearly is a woman who understood long before anyone else did that Thomas Girardi was someone to step away from — and who did exactly that, quietly, without explanation, and without looking back.
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FAQ
1. Who is Karen Weitzul?
Karen Weitzul is an American woman born approximately 1941 in Wisconsin. She is best known as the first wife of Thomas Girardi — the California attorney who became one of the most powerful plaintiffs’ lawyers in the United States before being disbarred and convicted of fraud. She married Girardi in August 1964 and divorced him long before his 2020 legal collapse. She has maintained a private life since.
2. How old is Karen Weitzul?
She was born around 1941. As of 2026, she is approximately 84 to 85 years old. Her exact birth date has never been publicly confirmed.
3. Where is Karen Weitzul from?
She was born in Wisconsin. Her family relocated to Southern California in the early 1950s. She grew up in the Los Angeles area and attended Loyola Marymount University. She is believed to currently live in Pasadena, California.
4. Who are Karen Weitzul’s parents?
Her father was Edward A. Weitzul (1909–1974), a civil engineer who worked on railroad and infrastructure projects. Her mother was Mary R. Weitzul (1916–2007), who later remarried and became Mary R. DuMont.
5. When did Karen Weitzul and Thomas Girardi get married?
They married in August 1964. This is confirmed across all major sources and is one of the few specific documented facts in her biography.
6. When did Karen Weitzul and Thomas Girardi divorce?
The exact divorce year is not confirmed in any public source. All sources describe it as occurring “decades” before Girardi’s 2020 legal collapse. The divorce produced court filings related to spousal support — confirming it happened — but the specific year is not in any verified public record.
7. Did Karen Weitzul and Thomas Girardi have children?
Most sources say no. Nightmag.co.uk, balzaromagazine.co.uk, and digitaljournalusa.co.uk all state there are no confirmed children from the marriage. One source — okaymagzines.com — claims she has a daughter named Camille. This claim appears in only one source with no corroboration and is treated as unverified in this article.
8. Was Karen Weitzul involved in Thomas Girardi’s fraud?
No. No public evidence connects her to his crimes. She had been divorced from him for decades before the fraud became public. Multiple sources explicitly confirm she is not linked to his legal and financial misconduct.
9. Who was Thomas Girardi?
Thomas Girardi was one of California’s most powerful plaintiffs’ attorneys. He won landmark cases including litigation against Pacific Gas and Electric that inspired the film Erin Brockovich. He was later disbarred, indicted on federal fraud charges, and convicted in 2024 for stealing from his own clients. He was married three times — Karen Weitzul was his first wife, Georgia Brizendine was his second, and Erika Jayne was his third.
10. What is Karen Weitzul’s net worth?
Her net worth is estimated at $1 million to $2 million. Multiple sources suggest this reflects alimony settlement proceeds from her divorce from Thomas Girardi. No other income source is confirmed. No verified financial document is publicly available.
11. Is Karen Weitzul on social media?
No. She has no confirmed public accounts on any social media platform. She has consistently maintained privacy and has not sought public attention.
12. Where is Karen Weitzul now?
She is reported to live in Pasadena, California. This is confirmed by multiple sources but not verified through any primary document. She maintains a quiet, private life and has made no public statements about Thomas Girardi’s criminal proceedings or convictions.
