There’s More! Los Angeles Prosecutors Hit Michael Avenatti With Separate Federal Charges of Wire and Bank Fraud

There’s more!

Avenatti was arrested in New York on federal extortion charges, Nicolas Biase, with the United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York told The Hollywood Reporter. 

Michael Avenatti is accused of trying to extort $20+ million from Nike.

According to the complaint, Avenatti threatened to hold a press conference to announce misconduct by Nike unless the athletic apparel company hired Avenatti and his co-conspirator to conduct an internal investigation for over $20 million.

A criminal complaint against Avenatti says he “devised a scheme to extort a company by means of an interstate communication by threatening to damage the company’s reputation if the company did not agree to make multi-million dollar payments to Avenatti and [co-conspirator], and further agree to pay an additional $1.5 million to a client of Avenatti’s.”

The complaint says that last Wednesday, Avenatti and a cooperating witness spoke by phone with lawyers for Nike “during which  Avenatti stated, with respect to his demands for payment of millions of dollars, that if those demands were not met ‘I’ll go take ten billion dollars off your client’s market cap … I’m not f—ing around.’ ”

He even tweeted about it like a genius:

But that’s not all…

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced separate charges of wire fraud and bank fraud against Avenatti at 2 PM EST:

Attorney Michael Avenatti was arrested today pursuant to a criminal complaint alleging he embezzled a client’s money in order to pay his own expenses and debts — as well as those of his coffee business and law firm — and also defrauded a bank by using phony tax returns to obtain millions of dollars in loans.

Avenatti, 48, of Century City, was arrested today pursuant to a two-count felony complaint charging him with wire fraud and bank fraud. He also was arrested pursuant to a separate federal case filed in New York.

According to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint in this case, Avenatti negotiated a settlement which called for $1.6 million in settlement money to be paid on January 10, 2018, but then gave the client a bogus settlement agreement with a false payment date of March 10, 2018. The affidavit states that Avenatti misappropriated his client’s settlement money and used it to pay expenses for his coffee business, Global Baristas US LLC, which operated Tully’s Coffee stores in California and Washington state, as well as for his own expenses. When the fake March 2018 deadline passed and the client asked where the money was, Avenatti continued to conceal that the payment had already been received, court documents said.

Avenatti also allegedly defrauded a bank in Mississippi by submitting to the lender false tax returns in order to obtain three loans totaling $4.1 million for his law firm and coffee business in 2014. According to the affidavit, Avenatti obtained the loans by submitting fabricated individual income tax returns (Forms 1040) for 2011, 2012, and 2013, reporting substantial income even though he had never filed any such returns with the Internal Revenue Service. The phony returns stated that he earned $4,562,881 in adjusted gross income in 2011, $5,423,099 in 2012, and $4,082,803 in 2013, according to the affidavit. Avenatti allegedly also claimed he paid $1.6 million in estimated tax payments to the IRS in 2012 and paid $1.25 million in 2013. In reality, Avenatti never filed personal income tax returns for 2011, 2012 and 2013 and did not make any estimated tax payments in 2012 and 2013. Instead of the millions of dollars he claimed to have paid in taxes, Avenatti still owed the IRS $850,438 in unpaid personal income tax plus interest and penalties for the tax years 2009 and 2010, court papers state. The affidavit also alleges that, as part of his loan applications, Avenatti also submitted a fictitious partnership tax return for his law firm.

Michael Avenatti, dubbed the ‘Creepy Porn Lawyer’ for representing porn star Stormy Daniels, has been in a downward spiral professionally and financially in the last several months.

Avenatti is no longer representing Stephanie Clifford AKA Stormy Daniels, but he left her with a hefty $293,052 judgment.

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Cristina began writing for The Gateway Pundit in 2016 and she is now the Associate Editor.

You can email Cristina Laila here, and read more of Cristina Laila's articles here.

 

Thanks for sharing!