Former Donald Trump defender Michael Avenatti sentenced again
Attorney Michael Avenatti, known for defending porn actress Stormy Daniels, was convicted on Monday of tax evasion and fraud charges.
Michael Avenatti in New York on July 23, 2019.
Getty Images via AFP
American lawyer Michael Avenatti, who defended porn actress Stormy Daniels against Donald Trump, was sentenced on Monday in California to another fourteen years in prison for tax evasion and defrauding several of his clients.
Michael Avenatti, who represented Stormy Daniels in her complaint against Donald Trump while the latter was in the White House, is notably accused by the courts of stealing $12.35 million (SFr11.63 million) from his clients. He pleaded guilty to the charges in June. This new sentence is in addition to the five-year prison sentence the attorney is currently serving for embezzlement after a conviction passed against him in New York.
The lawyer “lied about the true terms of the settlement he was negotiating for his client, hid payments made by the other party, secretly took and spent settlement money belonging to the client, and urged the client not to complain or not to investigate further by giving him small “advances” of funds believed to have yet to be paid,” federal prosecutors said.
Start of end in March 2019
Michael Avenatti found himself in the spotlight in 2018 when he defended Stormy Daniels, who claims she had a brief relationship in 2006 with Donald Trump. Stephanie Clifford, her real name, had sued the American president to cancel a confidentiality agreement that forbade him to talk about this adventure.
Michael Avenatti then appeared as a left defender of the Republican president, multiplying his interventions in the press and on social media, to the point of making it clear that he could run against Donald Trump in the race for the White House.
But March 2019 was the beginning of the end for the shaven-headed lawyer, arrested for attempted extortion against Nike and for tax evasion. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison in July 2021 for attempting to extort millions of dollars from the sports equipment supplier. The 51-year-old lawyer was also convicted in the Stormy Daniels case.
Last February, a federal court in Manhattan found that he had deceived and defrauded the actress and her publisher by embezzlement of $300,000 of the $800,000 advance promised for a book of revelations in her bank account (“Full Disclosure”) about her relationship with Donald Trump. The money, half of which the lawyer repaid, enabled Michael Avenatti to travel and afford a leased Ferrari.
AFP extension
Did you find an error?Let us know.
