NEW YORK — Fresh off signing her brand new contract to return to Wicked Pictures as a director and brand ambassador, AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels won a high-profile legal battle Friday, when her former attorney Michael Avenatti was convicted on charges he cheated her out of nearly $300,000.
A jury in New York ruled against the disgraced attorney on charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft after Daniels said Avenatti stole the money she was supposed to get for writing a book about her alleged tryst with former President Donald Trump.
After the verdict Avenatti told reporters, “I’m looking forward to a full adjudication of all the issues on appeal," the Associated Press reported.
U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered Avenatti to surrender Monday to U.S. marshals in California.
Avenatti has delayed serving a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for his 2020 conviction in an extortion case involving Nike while waiting for the Stormy Daniels trial and the retrial of a separate fraud case in a California federal court. Sentencing was set for May 24. Prosecutors said it was likely that Daniels will speak at sentencing, according to AP.
In addition to the sentence he has yet to begin serving for trying to extort Nike for more than 20 million, Avenatti is also awaiting a retrial in LA on charges that he ripped off clients and others for millions. He represented himself last year for six weeks before the proceeding was declared a mistrial.
Daniels, who won the 2004 AVN Award for Best New Starlet, first hired Avenatti to defend her for receiving a $130,000 hush payment deal that kept her from speaking publicly about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, who still denies that their tryst ever happened.
