Michael Avenatti Facing 333 Years In Prison
- 5 years ago
"Celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti was slammed Thursday with a 36-count indictment by a federal grand jury in California that accuses him of ripping off clients— including a mentally ill paraplegic — for millions of dollars, shorting the IRS of millions more, swiping millions of dollars in employment taxes from his coffee company, and perjury.
The indictment comes more than two weeks after federal prosecutors in Los Angeles and New York hit the 48-year-old Avenatti with separate criminal complaints.
And it comes more than a year after the hyper-aggressive litigator first gained widespread notoriety for his representation of porn star Stormy Daniels in her legal tussles with President Donald Trump and his former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.
U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna of Los Angeles said that Avenatti’s allegedly criminal conduct spanned four distinct areas, which “are all linked to one another because money generated from one set of crimes appears in other sets – typically in the form of payments to lull victims and to prevent Mr. Avenatti’s financial house of cards from collapsing.”
The indictment comes more than two weeks after federal prosecutors in Los Angeles and New York hit the 48-year-old Avenatti with separate criminal complaints.
And it comes more than a year after the hyper-aggressive litigator first gained widespread notoriety for his representation of porn star Stormy Daniels in her legal tussles with President Donald Trump and his former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.
U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna of Los Angeles said that Avenatti’s allegedly criminal conduct spanned four distinct areas, which “are all linked to one another because money generated from one set of crimes appears in other sets – typically in the form of payments to lull victims and to prevent Mr. Avenatti’s financial house of cards from collapsing.”