Michael Avenatti Offers to Plead Guilty to Remaining Criminal Charges
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Michael Avenatti offered to plead guilty to his remaining criminal charges on Sunday, after being convicted for embezzling from his then-client, adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
Avenatti filed with a federal court in California in a case in which he potentially faces over 300 years in prison on 36 criminal charges for stealing millions of dollars from clients, lying to the Internal Revenue Service and a bankruptcy court, and defrauding a bank, Reuters reported.
In the filing he wrote that he wanted to plead guilty “to be accountable; accept responsibility; avoid his former clients being further burdened; save the court and the government significant resources; and save his family further embarrassment.”
Avenatti is already set to serve four years in prison for stealing nearly $300,000 in book advance money from Daniels, whom he represented in lawsuits dealing with the Trump campaign’s efforts to cover up the candidate’s previous sexual encounter with her.
A federal jury concluded in 2018 that he rerouted two advance payments from Daniels’ book deal, which she signed following the revelation that she received $130,000 in hush money from President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen. Cohen provided that payment in exchange for her silence about her liaison with Trump. The jury convicted Avenatti in February of aggravated identity fraud and wire fraud.
Avenatti also previously received a 2.5 year sentence in a separate case for trying to extort Nike out of $25 million by threatening the company with bad publicity unless it capitulated to his requests. He is appealing the conviction. Part of his Daniels case sentence will run concurrent with the Nike case sentence, resulting in a total of five years in prison.
“Michael Avenatti used illegal and extortionate threats and betrayed one of his clients for the purpose of seeking to obtain millions of dollars for himself,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said following the outcome of that case. “Not only did Avenatti attempt to weaponize his law license and celebrity to seek to extort payments for himself, he also defrauded his own client. Avenatti will now serve substantial time in prison for his criminal conduct.”
The Sunday legal filing did not specify how many or to which charges Avenatti intended to plead guilty, noting that he failed to reach a settlement after plea bargaining with prosecutors despite his “substantial efforts” in the last 30 days. He now requests a court hearing.
Like in the Daniels case, Avenatti will represent himself in the California case. A trial on the first ten charges will begin on July 26, following a mistrial last August.
