Michael Avenatti, the high-flying former lawyer for AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels in her 2018 lawsuit against Donald Trump, finds himself behind bars this week after a federal judge revoked his bail, according to a report by CNBC.
Avenatti has been charged with a series of financial crimes in at least thee different cases—including accusations that he bilked Daniels out of nearly $300,000 from her publisher’s advance paid for her book, Full Disclosure. But prosecutors now allege that, even as he was fighting those charges in court, Avenatti was busy committing a whole new set of crimes, including mail fraud, wire fraud, structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements, and even money laundering.
But when a Twitter user defended Avenatti—who has claimed that the charges against him are the result of vendetta by Trump—Daniels took to her own Twitter account to volunteer her reaction to the Avenatti jailing. And to say Daniels showed little sympathy for her discharged ex-lawyer would be an understatement.
“Did they make him forge my name, steal my money and lie to me?” Daniels wrote. “Fuck him!”
Avenatti is accused of diverting the publisher’s book advance intended for Daniels into a personal bank account, where he then allegedly put the cash to his own use.
Starting in March of 2018 when Daniels filed a lawsuit against Trump, seeking to be freed from a “hush money” deal meant to silence her over a sexual encounter between the two in 2006, Avenatti became one of the most famous personalities in the country thanks to his near-nightly appearances on cable news broadcasts.
But just days after that lawsuit was finally dismissed in March of 2019, Avenatti was arrested on multiple charges of bank fraud, extortion and other alleged financial crimes.
On Tuesday, Avenatti was reportedly in the middle of a preliminary hearing in front of the California state bar association, which is moving to disbar him. But the hearing had not even wrapped up before IRS agents showed up and took the 48-year-old attorney into custody—not even allowing him to remain for the duration of his hearing.
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