Celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti has been arrested on charges related to an alleged $20 million extortion of the athletic apparel company Nike, federal authorities in New York City said Monday.
Time was Michael Avenatti was riding high, using his representation of Trump accuser Stormy Daniels to parlay that into preparing a bid to become the Democratic nominee for president in 2020. But then a judge ruled against Stormy Daniels, and Avenatti watched his carefully constructed house of cards fall to the ground. Now he has been arrested in a $20 million extortion scheme against shoe giant Nike Corporation.
Liberals must be besides themselves knowing that everything they do to try and stop Donald Trump blows up in their face each and every time. I must admit, it’s great fun to watch. Here’s to hoping that the Liberals keep it up, that’s how Donald Trump will be reelected in 2020.
Stormy Daniels’ ex-lawyer Michael Avenatti arrested for alleged $20 million extortion scheme against Nike, embezzling client’s money, defrauding bank
FROM CNBC: Michael Avenatti also is charged in a separate federal case out of Los Angeles, where he is accused of embezzling a client’s money “in order to pay his own expense and debts,” and of “defrauding a bank in Mississippi,” prosecutors said.
Avenatti, 48, had represented porn star Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump and his former lawyer Michael Cohen related to a non-disclosure agreement she had signed on the eve of the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump in exchange for a $130,000 payment.
A press conference is scheduled to discuss the charges against Avenatti in Los Angeles on Monday afternoon. Avenatti is due to be presented in federal court on Monday.
Michael Avenatti Tried to Beat Trump at His Own Game
Please enjoy this 2018 flashback of Michael Avenatti bragging about how Trump would “soon be arrested” as a result of his amazing legal legwork. Hmm…this didn’t age well.
“A lawyer has a basic duty not to steal from his client,” said U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles Nick Hanna. “Mr. Avenatti is facing serious criminal charges alleging he misappropriated client trust funds for his personal use and he defrauded a bank by submitting phony tax returns in order to obtain millions of dollars in loans.”
The charges were revealed less than an hour after Avenatti announced a press conference to discuss purported claims against Nike. An FBI agent said in the complaint in New York that the lawyer had threatened to hold a press conference on the eve of Nike’s quarterly earnings call to announced “allegations of misconduct by employees of Nike.”
A criminal complaint filed in New York against Avenatti says he “devised a scheme to extort a company by means of an interstate communication by threatening to damage the company’s reputation if the company did not agree to make multi-million dollar payments to Avenatti and [co-conspirator], and further agree to pay an additional $1.5 million to a client of Avenatti’s.”
The complaint says that last Wednesday, Avenatti and a cooperating witness spoke by phone with lawyers for Nike “during which Avenatti stated, with respect to his demands for payment of millions of dollars, that if those demands were not met ‘I’ll go take ten billion dollars off your client’s market cap … I’m not f—ing around.’ ”
Nike had no immediate comment.
In the Los Angeles case, Avenatti is accused of negotiating a $1.6 million settlement for a client in a civil case, but then giving the client “a bogus settlement agreement with a false payment date of March 10, 2018,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.
That office said “Avenatti misappropriated his client’s settlement money and used it to pay expenses for his coffee business, Global Baristas US LLC, which operated Tully’s Coffee stores in California and Washington state, as well as for his own expenses.:
“When the fake March 2018 deadline passed and the client asked where the money was, Avenatti continued to conceal that the payment had already been received, court documents said,” according to prosecutors.
“Avenatti also allegedly defrauded a bank in Mississippi by submitting to the lender false tax returns in order to obtain three loans totaling $4.1 million for his law firm and coffee business in 2014,” the L.A. U.S. Attorney’s Office said. READ MORE