Michael Avenatti was sentenced to 14 years in prison on four counts of wire fraud in court on Monday, December 5. The disgraced lawyer had pleaded guilty to the charges, per CNN. He was charged for embezzling millions of dollars from four clients. He will reportedly begin the trial after he finishes serving five years in prison for two other trials, including where he was charged with stealing thousands of dollars from his former client Stormy Daniels.
Avenatti was Daniels’ lawyer throughout her legal battles against former President Donald Trump, but he was arrested for trying to extort Nike for $20 million. He appeared alongside Daniels in a number of lawsuits against Trump and his former attorney Michael Cohen. He was later found guilty of stealing $300,000 from Daniels, and attempting to extort Nike. He was sentenced to 4 years for the Daniels trial and two and half with Nike, which he is currently serving concurrently. Find out everything else you need to know about Avenatti here.
1. Michael graduated at the top of his class in law school.
He attended George Washington University where he worked closely alongside professors on constitutional issues relating to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Michael then graduated first in his class, earning the Order of the Coif.
2. According to Nike’s criminal complain against Michael, he threatened to release damaging information about the company if they didn’t summon up millions of dollars.
“I’ll go take $10 billion dollars off your client’s market cap…I’m not f***ing around,” Avenatti said, according to the complaint.”And I’m not continuing to play games. You guys know enough now to know you’ve got a serious problem and it’s worth more in exposure to me to just blow the lid on this thing,” he added.
3. Michael has brought in bank when it comes to successfully arguing cases
He successfully represented a plaintiff in an idea theft lawsuit against The Apprentice and the show’s executive producers Mark Burnett and Trump. Mark Bethea had claimed that he came up with a reality-based television show called C.E.O. featuring Trump as the host and pitched it to Burnett’s business manager in 2001. The legendary reality producer allegedly passed on the idea then in 2003 debuted The Apprentice on NBC, with Trump as the host and E.P. The case was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
5. Michael is a racecar driver.
He’s just as hard charging when it comes to hobbies as he is at his law practice. Since 2010, Michael has competed in over 30 professional sports car races including 24 Hours of LeMans, 24 Hours of Daytona, and the Porsche SuperCup among others.