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Michael Avenatti: Stormy Daniels' ex-lawyer gets 14-yr prison for tax fraud and stealing $12M from clients

The lawyer known for representing porn star Stormy Daniels has to serve his new sentence on top of existing five years prison term
UPDATED DEC 6, 2022
Michael Avenatti, 51, known for representing porn star Stormy Daniels, is sentenced to 14 years in prison for stealing millions from clients and tax fraud (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Michael Avenatti, 51, known for representing porn star Stormy Daniels, is sentenced to 14 years in prison for stealing millions from clients and tax fraud (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA: The already imprisoned former attorney Micahel Avenatti is sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. The lawyer admitted to tax fraud and stealing a total of $12 million from his clients.

Avenatti became famous after the representation of porn star Stormy Daniels in litigation against former president Donald Trump. Along with the sentencing on December 5, in restitution,  Avenatti was ordered by a district court in Orange County to pay nearly $8 million, reports the Daily Mail.

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Avenatti who turned widely popular after he tried to help Daniels in breaking a confidentiality agreement relating to her alleged affair with Trump, is already serving his five-year prison sentence for the Nike extortion scheme of $20 million and also for stealing from Daniels. MEAWW previously reported that in the Nike extortion case, on July 8, 2021, Avenatti was sentenced to 2.5 years in federal prison which was followed by a supervised release of three years in a Manhattan federal courtroom. 

Sentenced to 14 years in prison now, Avenatti admitted that he spent some of the money he secretly took from settlement money that is paid to his clients to bye a private jet which will now be confiscated by the government, reports the Daily Mail. His sentence will run consecutively or on top of the existing five years, he is serving, said Judge James V Selna. The former attorney argued that it was only closer to $3.8 million that his clients have lost in real.

A mentally ill paraplegic on disability was one of the clients whom Avenatti defrauded. According to the LA Times, Geoffrey Ernest Johnson, who was left paraplegic following a suicide attempt and has suffered from in-custody injuries wrote in a statement to the court that this experience of fraudulence has left him heartbroken and he is having a hard time trusting people. "To this day, I do not know why Michael lied and deceived me, why he broke my trust, why he broke my heart", he wrote.

According to the Daily Mail, Avenatti tried to make his fraudulence case sentencing to six years and also argued for his new sentence to run consecutively with the punishment wherein Selna was asked by federal prosecutors in Santa Ana to issue a 17-and-a-half term sentencing.

Though Avenatti lost his law license, during the trial he chose to represent himself. In the documents and writings submitted to the court, it was in the third person narrative that he wrote about himself, reports the Daily Mail. In a memo to the court judge, Avenatti wrote that "Defendant deserves just punishment for his crimes, including a prison sentence. He likewise deserves to lose his law license, his 22-year career, his assets, his countless personal and professional relationships, and his reputation, almost all of which have already been rightly taken from him."

Without striking a plea deal, charged with four counts of wire fraud and tax fraud, Avenatti pleaded guilty earlier this year as he stated to the court that he did not want his family embarrassed and he wanted to be held accountable.

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