Supreme Court rejects appeal from ex- Stormy Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti on extortion conviction
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from ex-Stormy Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti over his 2020 conviction for scheming to extort up to $25 million from shoemaker Nike, one of three cases that put him behind bars.
Avenatti, the disgraced celebrity lawyer who rose to fame battling former President Donald Trump over a hush money payoff to Daniels, was sentenced to 2½ years in prison after his conviction on charges that included attempted extortion and honest-services fraud.
Avenatti had threatened to reveal what he claimed was evidence that Nike made improper payments to high school basketball players unless the company paid $1.5 million to one of his clients and $15 million to $25 million for him and an associate to conduct an investigation of Nike.
The California attorney argued he had engaged in legal settlement discussions with Nike for his client, an Amateur Athletic Union basketball coach who had made the allegations against Nike. The company has denied any wrongdoing.
The worst he can be guilty of, Avenatti’s public defender told the Supreme Court, is abusing his fiduciary responsibility to his client by leveraging the client to get his own payment.
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But the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit last year said it’s not reasonable to believe that Avenatti was acting in his client’s interests, instead of his own, when he wanted Nike to pay him millions of dollars in exchange for not publicly going after the company.
The district judge overseeing the case said the evidence showed Avenatti hijacked his client’s claim “to pursue his own agenda, which was to obtain a multi-million windfall for himself.”
Avenatti also tried to argue that the criminal code used to charge him with honest-services fraud is unconstitutionally vague.
The Justice Department said the code meets the required standard of an ordinary person being able to understand the prohibited conduct and does not lead to arbitrary enforcement.
The federal mail and wire fraud statute says criminal activity includes “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that the law covers bribery and kickback schemes and is not unconstitutionally vague.
The conviction Avenatti unsuccessfully appealed is not the only legal trouble he’s faced since his high-profile days of representing Daniels in a lawsuit over what she said was a bid by Trump during his presidential campaign to prevent her from speaking about having sex with him.
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In June of 2022, Avenatti was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing book proceeds from Daniels.
Six months later he was sentenced to an additional 14 years for cheating clients out of millions of dollars and failing to pay taxes.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michael Avenatti's Nike case appeal rejected by Supreme Court
