Just hours after the California State Bar Association cleared him of professional misconduct allegations—allegations filed in March days after he filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump on behalf of AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels—Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti was arrested Wednesday in Los Angeles on suspicion of domestic violence, according to multiple media reports.
NBC News, however, reported that Avenatti was “detained in the process of taking an incident report,” which appears to contradict reports that he was placed under arrest.
UPDATE: NBC News has since updated its report to confirm that Avenatti was arrested, and the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed via its Twitter account that, "LAPD Detectives arrested Michael Avenatti on suspicion of domestic violence. This is an ongoing investigation and we will provide more details as they become available."
The Hollywood Reporter wrote that it had confirmed Avenatti’s arrest, and that a Los Angeles Police department spokesperson said that the report accusing the high-profile attorney and outspoken Donald Trump critic of domestic violence was filed on Tuesday.
According to the celebrity gossip site TMZ, which first reported the arrest, Avenatti had a confrontation with an unidentified woman on Wednesday at a high-end apartment building in the exclusive Century City district of Los Angeles. TMZ reported that “sources” described the woman’s face as “swollen and bruised.”
TMZ had initially reported that the woman was Avenatti's estranged wife, but later updated the story to say that the alleged victim was a different woman.
While Avenatti has not yet commented publicly on the arrest, TMZ reported that during the Wednesday confrontation he was heard declaring, “She hit me first!” But the details reported by the gossip site have not been independently confirmed as of Wednesday afternoon.
Earlier on Wednesday, the California Bar announced that it had completed an investigation into allegations of professional misconduct stemming from Avenatti’s ownership of a coffee shop chain, Tully’s Coffee. According to a letter posted by Avenatti on his Twitter account, the Bar Association declared the matter “closed” with no further action to be taken.
“I said at the time that the accusations were politically motivated and baseless. And I was right. I was just cleared,” Avenatti wrote on Twitter.
Photo by Showtime Network 'The Circus'/Wikimedia Commons
