Wednesday, as New York jurors deliberated over allegations Michael Avenatti tried to extort Nike out of millions of dollars, an April 21 trial date was set in a pending federal criminal case charging he stole from faded porn star Stormy Daniels, the NY Post reports.
The attorney carnival barker will face allegations he stole $300,000 from his former client and forged her signature to divert two advance payments for her memoir, “Full Disclosure”.
The trial date was scheduled at the same time U.S. District Court Judge Paul Gardephe was prepping jurors to deliberate on the extortion case.
Avenatti, 48, became famous representing faded porn star Daniels and becoming an antagonist of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Federal prosecutors allege Avenatti diverted funds earned from Daniels’ memoir and used the cash to pay for personal expenses, including a lease payment on a Ferrari, hotels, airfare, meals, car services and dry cleaning.
The brash attorney purportedly used cash from “another source” to give Daniels half of the money he stole, prosecutors previously said.
Aside from the pending Nike and Daniels cases, Avenatti also faces criminal charges in California for allegedly stealing from other clients. The California Bar Association recently took action to suspend him for allegedly stealing from clients “deceit, dishonesty, and lies”.
In January, he was arrested in Los Angeles after authorities there alleged that he violated the conditions of his bail by moving money around illegally since his initial arrest last spring.
2 Responses
This guy seems like a piker next to our Commander In Chief.
Unfortunately, the only reason he is facing most of these charges at all is because he needled our “President” so much in the media. If that hadn’t happened he wouldn’t have even been investigated federally. He would have likely faced state charges on stealing the money but the rest of this is all because he didn’t know who not to fuck with like he did. You don’t go full bore on a country’s leader and then expect to remain free to continue to do so in his country. What is not being discussed is that he likely will face state charges in two states when the federal trials are completed. Being tried on similar charges in state and in federal court isn’t considered double jeopardy because they are two separate legal systems. Avenatti is looking at spending the rest of his life in prison because he didn’t know when to stop. I don’t even like Donald Trump but I know not to fuck with him like he did in the Stormy Daniels case. I may needle him a bit on Twatter but I know not to go full-bore like Avenatti did.