(RepublicanView.org) – The US Supreme Court has left a ruling in place against attorney Michael Avenatti, who was convicted of attempting to extort $25 million from sportswear giant Nike. The Court did not comment on refusing to hear Avenatti’s appeal, which the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals had also rejected. That Court ruled there was sufficient evidence to support this conviction.
Avenatti, who represented Stormy Daniels and was subsequently convicted of stealing from her, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for attempted extortion and honest services fraud in 2021, a year after his conviction. The attorney was found guilty of threatening to expose Nike’s alleged payments to amateur basketball players unless the company paid him $25 million. He reportedly told Nike representatives that the revelation, which Nike denied, would take ten billion off its stock market value.
US district judge Paul Gardephe said that Avenatti’s behavior was “outrageous” and he had become “drunk on the power of his platform.” The lawyer was contrite and admitted that he had destroyed his own career while telling his children they ought to be ashamed of him.
Separately, Avenatti received a four-year jail sentence in 2022 for stealing from client Stormy Daniels – whose alleged encounter with Donald Trump is at the center of a recent conviction against the former President in New York.
The lawyer negotiated an $800,000 book deal for Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, but fraudulently rerouted $300,000 to his own account by forging a letter in Clifford’s name. During the trial, Avenatti represented himself and insisted that he was entitled to the $300,000 payment, but he later apologized to the actress, stating that he had let her down.
Daniels’ attorney, Clark Brewster, said she was happy that Avenatti had been held to account, adding that this was not a case of bad judgment but a “deceitful scheme of lies.”
Copyright 2024, RepublicanView.org
