The controversial American lawyer Michael Avenatti, who rose to fame for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in her disputes with former US President Donald Trump, was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison for defrauding his client.
Avenatti, who was 50 years old and who at his moment of greatest popularity even sounded like a presidential candidate in the United States, was convicted at a jury trial in February of one count of fraud, which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison, and another count of felony identity theft , sentenced to a minimum of two years.
Federal Judge Jesse Furman, handing down a four-year sentence today, said that Avenatti took advantage of “a vulnerable victim” and abused her trust, “the greatest duty of a lawyer to his client”, by committing the “blatant” and “appalling” fraud against the actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
The lawyer was accused of steal your client 300, from the 800,000 dollars that she received for writing a book about her memoirs, for which the lawyer sent the literary agent from the woman a document “supposedly signed” by her asking her to send the payments for the work to an account controlled by him.
The book included details about Clifford’s alleged extramarital affair with Trump, then already married to his wife Melania, and about the payment of 130,000 dollars that he said he had received during the electoral campaign of the former president’s general elections so that he would keep it a secret.
This is a new legal setback for Avenatti, who in 2021 was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for trying to extort some 20 million dollars from the clothing company Nike, and that another trial is pending in which he is accused of staying 10 millions obtained in out-of-court settlements from his clients.
According to local media, the lawyer expressed remorse before the magistrate and said: “I have destroyed my career, my relationships and my reputation, and done collateral damage to my family and my life. There are serious doubts as to whether or how I will recover something resembling a normal life or peace”.
Judge Furman ruled that Avenatti, once he completes his sentence for extortion of Nike, add later 30 more months for the sentence received today.
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