LOS ANGELES—Last week, the former lawyer for AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, asked a judge to delay the start of his California trial on fraud charges so that he could focus on preparations for his trial on charges that he swindled Daniels out of nearly $300,000. Instead, his trial in the Daniels case was pushed back, into next year.
Avenatti was previously scheduled to face the Daniels-related charges in court on April 26. But last Friday, federal Southern District of New York Judge Jesse Furman issued a ruling delaying that trail date to January 10, 2022, according to a report by The Associated Press. Furman, however, said that the 2022 date was “firm.”
How the delay affects the two separate California fraud trials now looming over Avenatti was not made clear. But the formerly jet-setting lawyer who achieved sudden media stardom in 2018 as Daniels’ lawyer in her lawsuit against Donald Trump is scheduled to begin the first of those two trials on February 23.
Avenatti last week asked for a delay in that trial, saying that it was too close to the start of his trial in the Daniels case — a trial that he argued is likely to attract considerable public attention. In the California cases, Avenatti faces bank and tax fraud charges in connection with what prosecutors say were his thefts of client settlement money.
In the Daniels case, Avenatti faces allegations that he siphoned off nearly $300,000 from a publisher’s book advance paid to Daniels for her 2018 memoir Full Disclosure. According to the charges, Avenatti diverted the funds owed to Daniels into a bank account that he, himself, controlled, then used the cash to pay for personal living expenses and luxury items as part of his high-flying lifestyle that saw him making almost daily media appearances during 2018.
Avenatti has entered pleas of not guilty in the Daniels case, and the California cases. Last year, Avenatti’s lawyers said that they plan to make the Daniels case not about Avenatti’s alleged misconduct, but about “the credibility of Stormy Daniels.” The lawyer, Thomas Warren, claimed that Daniels actually owes Avenatti thousands of dollars in unpaid legal fees.
Daniels' own lawyer, Clark Brewster — who succeeded Avenatti — brushed off Warren’s claim at the time. A lengthy paper trail shows that Daniels and Avenatti agreed that she owed him no money for the legal services that launched him to national fame, Brewster said.
Also last week, Avenatti — who was released from a New York jail on COVID-19 grounds and is now under home confinement at a friend’s residence in Venice, California — also asked to delay his sentencing in yet another case. In that one, Avenatti was convicted of attempting to extort the Nike corporation out of $20 million. Prosecutors charged that Avenatti threatened to hold a press conference exposing what he claimed was Nike’s involvement in a college sports recruiting scandal, unless the company coughed up the eight-figure sum.
In that case, Avenatti’s request was granted. SDNY Judge Paul Gardephe set the sentencing date in the Nike case for May 7. Under law, Avenatti could be sentenced to up to 42 years behind bars for his extortion conviction.
Followers of Avenatti’s sudden ascent and equally sudden plunge into scandal and disgrace, or those unfamiliar with the details, will be able to catch up on Monday, January 18, when CNBC premieres the 14th season of its documentary series American Greed. The episode, titled “The Trials of Michael Avenatti," tells the tale of the media-friendly lawyer’s bizarre career.
Actor Kamy D. Bruder will portray Avenatti in dramatic reenactments of events from the embattled attorney’s complex biography, on the American Greed episode.
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