The anti-Trump creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti has now been sentenced to 4 years in prison. This time he stole money from Stormy Daniels’ book sales.
The Californian lawyer, who is serving time in jail already for trying to blackmail shoemaker Nike for $25 million, learned of his new sentence from Manhattan Judge Jesse M. Furman on Thursday morning.
Judge Furman sentenced Avenatti to an extra 2 1/2 years in prison on top of the 2 1/2 years he is already serving for the Nike case.
The judge claimed that Avenatti siphoned $300,000 in book proceeds from Stormy Daniels “out of desperation” as his law firm was struggling financially at the time. The lawyer will also be forced to pay $148,000 in restitution and forfeit the roughly $297,000 in damages that he is alleged to have stolen from the pornstar.
The incarcerated attorney released a message from prison before the sentence was read, declaring “I have destroyed my career, my relationships and my reputation and have done collateral damage to my family and my life. There is serious doubt as to how or if I will ever recover any semblance of a normal life.”
Still he tried to play himself up as a hero, saying he represented Daniels because nobody else would, calling her an “underdog”.
Daniels’ attorney said it was “truly shocking” that he would try and portray himself as a champion of his clients after the conviction.
Michael Avenatti skyrocketed to national fame when he agreed to take on the case of Stormy Daniels after she accused Donald Trump for using hush money to silence her from discussing their 2006 affair. While it was denied at first, Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen later admitted to paying her $130,000 of his “own personal funds”.
Avenatti represented Daniels when she sued then-President Trump to release her from the 2016 non-disclosure over the alleged affair. He also was her attorney in another attempted defamation suit against Trump that was dismissed by a federal judge. While Avenatti vowed to appeal the decision, Daniels said that he filed it against her wishes.
At one point the now-jailed Michael Avenatti was even being floated as a possible Democrat presidential candidate to run against Trump in 2020.
Avenatti’s case with Nike, which solidified the end of his career, stems from 2019 when he threatened to expose damaging information about the company unless they paid him $25 million, alleging they had been paying off the families of high school basketball players. The lawyer was arrested roughly 15 minutes after announcing a next-day press conference over his claims against the athletic wear giant.
Michael Avenatti will only be spending a few years in jail, but it’s unlikely his career will ever recover. Do you think this is the last we will hear about the porn lawyer or will he be back in the news with a new exposé the second he is released?
