LOS ANGELES—Michael Avenatti, the disgraced former lawyer for AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels, faces a trial on fraud charges set to start on February 23. But now, Avenatti wants to delay that trial because he says he needs to focus instead on his trial for allegedly swindling Daniels out of nearly $300,000.
Avenatti has already faced trial and been convicted on charges that he attempted to extort the Nike shoe corporation out of $20 million. Though he remains under house arrest at the home of a friend in Venice, Calif., Avenatti is scheduled to return to New York for sentencing in the Nike case on February 17.
But in a court document filed Thursday, Avenatti asked for another delay to that date as well. He now wants the Nike sentencing pushed to May.
Avenatti’s trial in the Daniels case is currently set for April 26 in New York. According to charges filed by federal prosecutors, Daniels was supposed to receive approximately $300,000 in a book publisher’s advance against royalties on her 2018 memoir Full Disclosure — but Avenatti had the payment transmitted to one of his personal bank accounts where he proceeded to siphon off the cash for use on his own personal expenses and luxuries to support his jet-setting lifestyle.
A previously little-known Southern California litigation attorney, Avenatti shot to national fame seemingly overnight when, in March of 2018, he filed a lawsuit on Daniels behalf against Donald Trump. The suit demanded that Daniels be freed from a “hush money” deal that prevented her from speaking about a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
Avenatti parlayed his notoriety from suing Trump into instant celebrity, making almost-daily appearances on cable news networks, and other TV and radio programs. By according to prosecutors, he was financing his high-flying lifestyle by bilking clients, including Daniels, out of cash that belonged to them.
In his court filing, Avenatti said that the Daniels trial is likely to attract a high level of publicity which could interfere with his right to due process if the California trial and the Daniels trial take place too close together in time.
Avenatti asked for the California trial to be postponed until August 24, but at a Wednesday hearing, United States District Judge James V. Selna said he felt the trial should start in July. He asked the defense and prosecutors to negotiate between themselves to set acceptable dates.
But the federal prosecutors have previously argued against further delays in the trial, at least until a judge decides whether Avenatti’s home confinement should be revoked over what they claim in the disgraced lawyer’s unauthorized use of an internet-connected computer.
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