UPDATE: First off, thank you all so much for these awards. I'm not quite sure what they mean or how they work, but its so thoughtful. I will give my dad all the hugs given by you all :). He and I have been talking about this nonstop. He and my mom are visiting us right now, so we've had more face time than usual. He read "THE" LA Times article top to bottom and many other articles online and his main takeaway is this: Tom was a good lawyer, doing good things. He then took a shortcut to either help short term with financial struggles or to keep his wife happy. One shortcut led to another shortcut and so on until there was just a circle of destruction around him. He owned 100% of his firm (meaning no other partners) and was pulling out at least $200,000 a month to pay himself, all above board. He earned it. That was all legal. In my dad's words: "If he did this to keep his wife happy, I wouldn't be surprised one bit. If they couldn't survive on at least $200,000 a month then there are some serious problems. This just further verifies my feelings that I made the right choices in life." Yes you did, dad, yes you did. My dad has been retired for the last 20 years - or as he calls it " a recovering attorney" He doesn't have any solid connections left to that world. He has moved on completely. He had two partners in his own firm do some dirty things and get in some serious trouble, so nothing is beyond the realm of possible in his mind. He is just sad that someone he thought was such a good guy fell down such a dark hole. If you have any questions you would like me to ask him, please let me know. I love having this connection with my dad and he comes alive when he talks about his old days practicing law, however hard it was. I feel like this update isn't too revelatory or juicy, so sorry. It's just his thoughts...which seem to line up with many others thoughts on this situation.

I grew up in Pasadena and my dad was a lawyer in downtown LA, so I had a suspicion he might know Tom. So I asked him. Little did I know, he worked many cases with him and knew him well. He called him “one of the good guys” meaning not a shiesty lawyer. Oh boy, did I just rock my dads world when I told him about what was going on. I felt like he was about to cry and he just couldn’t believe it. My poor retired 76 year old dad thought he knew this man. I asked him if he’d heard of the Real Housewives (totally thinking the answer would be no) and he said “oh yes, I’ve heard of that.” I told him Tom was married to one of them and his reply was “well, that’s definitely not his first wife!” 😂. He knew all about Tom’s beautiful house in the Arroyo of Pasadena and said he made so much money, why would he EVER do this? He’s researching it all now as we speak. I can’t wait to hear his take on everything. Just thought I’d share with you all.