By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Michael Avenatti, the brash California lawyer who once took on then-President Donald Trump, is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday for defrauding his best-known former client, the porn actress Stormy Daniels.
A federal jury in Manhattan convicted Avenatti in February of wire fraud and aggravated identity after a two week trial, agreeing that he embezzled nearly $300,000 in book proceeds intended for Daniels.
Prosecutors recommended that Avenatti, 51, receive a prison term that was “substantial” but shorter than the approximately five or six years — including a mandatory two-year term for identity theft — recommended under federal guidelines. nL2N2XJ18V]
They said any term should be on top of his 2-1/2-year sentence from his 2020 conviction for trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike Inc.
Avenatti, who represented himself, proposed a three-year sentence in the Daniels case, with one year running concurrent with his Nike sentence.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman is expected to decide Avenatti’s sentence at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT).
Avenatti became a household name thanks to cable television appearances while representing Daniels in lawsuits against Trump.
Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, received $130,000 from Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, in exchange for remaining quiet before the 2016 presidential election about sexual encounters she says she had with Trump, which he has denied.
Avenatti freed Daniels from her nondisclosure agreement with Trump.
But his career unraveled in 2019 when he was criminally charged in New York in the Nike case, and in California with stealing millions of dollars from five other clients. The California case is ongoing following a mistrial last August.
Daniels testified that Avenatti “betrayed” her by diverting money to an account he controlled without telling her.
During cross-examination, Avenatti tried to undermine Daniels’ credibility by focusing on her interest in paranormal activity. Daniels, who is producing the TV project “Spooky Babes,” said she could speak with the dead.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
