Michael Avenatti, a disgraced lawyer known for defending a porn star and going after Donald Trump, was sentenced to 168 months in prison on four counts of wire fraud.
This 14-year sentence is in addition to the five-year sentence he is serving for other offences, including taking over $300,000 in advance money from his then-client Stormy Daniels.
Daniels once pointed out that Avenatti filed the case against Trump before he gave him the go-ahead. She also pointed out that he used monies from her GoFundMe project, and that the creepy porn lawyer created a second crowd-funding account using her name without ever telling her.
Avenatti was evicted from his law office for failure to pay rent. He was also ordered by another judge to pay $4.85 million to a former employee who took him to court because he didn’t pay him monies owed for work rendered.
In June, Avenatti pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud and one count of tax fraud, admitting to misappropriating around $10 million from clients.
According to Law and Crime News senior writer Meghann Cuniff, who was filming the proceedings, Avenatti appeared sombre during his sentence on Monday, often keeping his head down and hands in front of him while hearing statements from two of his victims.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELJudge Selna sentences Avenatti to prison "for a term of 168 months."
That's for the four wire fraud counts, and it includes 36 months for the IRS obstruction charge. This is pretty close to what @USAO_LosAngeles prosecutors wanted.
— Meghann Cuniff (@meghanncuniff) December 5, 2022
“You honor, I am deeply sorry and remorseful for my criminal conduct,” he told U.S. District Judge James Selna. “I caused harm and damage to four individuals who relied on me, who needed me and were not only my clients, but my friends.”
He continues, “I cared about them, helped them and fiercely advocated for them. Yet inexplicably, I later took from them. I will not stand here and attempt to offer any excuses for my conduct because there are none.”
Avenatti has committed “great evil for which he must answer” according to Judge Selna, and has demonstrated “an abandonment of some of the most basic principles of fairness.”
“It is now time to pay his debts to the victims, the government and society,” the Judge remarked as he sentenced him.
Avenatti gained widespread recognition across the nation as the attorney representing porn star Stormy Daniels in her unsuccessful lawsuit against former President Donald Trump after it emerged that she had received $130,000 in hush money to remain silent about an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump years earlier. In fact, the lawsuit was so unsuccessful that in the end, Daniels had to pay Trump to the sum of $293,000 in legal fees.
Before being dubbed the “creepy porn lawyer” by Tucker Carlson, Avenatti was the darling of the mainstream media, seen as a hero “David” for taking on “Goliath” Trump. CNN and MSNBC had him on so many times that people started to wonder if he was a hired contributor. The dopes at those networks touted Avenatti was presidential material to defeat Trump.
He was also convicted of extortion in July 2021 after attempting to extort $25 million from Nike on behalf of a Los Angeles youth basketball club. He was condemned to 30 months in prison and sobbed uncontrollably.
In addition to the various fraud counts against him, he acknowledged to obstructing IRS efforts to collect delinquent payroll taxes totaling an estimated $5 million, including payroll taxes withheld from employee paychecks at an Avenatti-owned Tully’s Coffee.
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