I found this gem on Twitter (posted by USA Today’s Brad Heath) and RT’d it on the @MikeSouthXXX account, but it bears amplification here for its novelty and sheer chutzpah alone.
Con artist, carnival barker and former Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti‘s lawyers have asked a New York federal court to dismiss charges that he tried to extort money from Nike. He says his conduct was protected by the First Amendment and that extortion laws don’t clearly apply to “threatening to truthfully expose employee misconduct.”
Talk about wrapping oneself up in the First Amendment…
Perhaps someone needs to point out to Avenatti that it’s the “give me money, or else…” part that makes it extortion.
Novelty
Through his attorneys, Avenatti describes his demand that Nike pay him millions of dollars to conduct an investigation of the company as “unique circumstances not squarely addressed by the case law” and say it’s no big deal that he might not have mentioned that part to his client.
The complete filing can be found here:
https://www.usatoday.com/documents/6301689-Memorandum-in-Support-of-Motion/
