Michael Avenatti convicted of stealing from Stormy Daniels
Source: AP
NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Avenatti was convicted Friday of charges he cheated the porn actor Stormy Daniels out of nearly $300,000 she was supposed to get for writing a book about an alleged tryst with former president Donald Trump. Avenatti stared straight ahead as the verdict was read. It was another crushing defeat for the California lawyer, who has faced a host of legal problems after briefly rising to fame as one of Trump’s leading antagonists on cable news early in the Republican’s administration.
Avenatti dumped his lawyers and decided to represent himself shortly after the trial began, setting up a face-to-face showdown with Daniels, his former client, who appeared in a new role as star witness. Prosecutors portrayed Avenatti as a common thief and serial liar. He countered by seeking to cast himself as a white knight who came to the rescue of Daniels until he turned on her.Over two days of cross-examination, he questioned her about the allegations that he’d swindled her out of book proceeds — and about ghost stories she’d told for a possible show about the supernatural world.
Avenatti still faces other legal problems. He has yet to begin serving a 2 1/2 year prison sentence he received in 2020 for trying to extort up to $25 million from sportswear giant Nike. He also is awaiting a retrial in Los Angeles on charges that he ripped off clients and others for millions of dollars. He represented himself last year for six weeks before a mistrial resulted. Daniels had initially hired Avenatti as she was trying to escape the terms of a $130,000 hush payment deal that kept her from speaking publicly about an alleged sexual encounter that Trump says never happened.
Avenatti parlayed his representation with Daniels into a string of cable news appearances, in which he mocked and baited Trump. When Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, was raided by the FBI in connection with tax evasion and payments made to women on Trump’s behalf, Avenatti contributed to the spectacle by bringing Daniels to the federal courthouse. The relationship between the two fell apart after Daniels said she learned that Avenatti had taken a share of her $800,000 book deal for himself.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/california-michael-avenatti-488001c7168ee17e6fa903f784909123
Just heard on my local CBS radio station.
Original article (am adding AP's to the OP now that it has an article out) -
By Colin Moynihan
Feb. 4, 2022, 3:02 p.m. ET
Four years ago, Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti presented a united front against then-president Donald J. Trump. Ms. Daniels, a pornographic film actress, said she had been paid $130,000 just before the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump that had occurred years earlier.
Her lawyer, Mr. Avenatti, filed a lawsuit in 2018 saying a nondisclosure agreement accompanying that payment was void because Mr. Trump had not signed it.But even as he condemned “thuggish behavior” aimed at Ms. Daniels by “people in power,” Mr. Avenatti was stealing from her, a jury in Manhattan found on Friday.
After deliberations that stretched across three days and at one point appeared to reach an impasse, jurors convicted Mr. Avenatti of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, agreeing with accusations that he used a bogus letter to trick Ms. Daniels’s literary agent into sending him almost $300,000 in publisher’s payments meant for her.
The conviction in Federal District Court is the most recent in a series of blows to Mr. Avenatti, a brash lawyer from California who became a household name while representing Ms. Daniels, appearing regularly on television and hurling Twitter gibes at Mr. Trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/nyregion/michael-avenatti-stormy-daniels-verdict.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
I recall seeing the suggestion that he run for President.
Just like they don't want the actual racist history of our country being taught in schools - it might make white children feel guilty - teaching civics might make republican insurrectionists feel bad - because they'd find out that violently attacking Police Officers, and dismantling the Constitution is bad as well.
Nope, nope, nope. Can't have that. 
I couldn't stand him, he had SLEAZE written all over him. 
and there were DUers who ADMIRED them
