NEW YORK, NY — On Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged attorney Michael Avenatti for misappropriating nearly 300,000 from his former client, Story Daniels.
Prosecutors expressed that he used the money that he took from Daniels for airfare, hotels and restaurant bills, dry cleaning, monthly payments on his Ferrari, in addition to payroll and insurance costs for his law firm’s employees.
The money was supposed to be paid to Daniels, when Avenatti was representing her in her dispute with President Trump and his former attorney Michael Cohen.
“Avenatti used misrepresentations and a fraudulent document purporting to bear his client’s name and signature to convince his client’s literary agent to divert money owed to Avenatti’s client to an account controlled by Avenatti,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman released in a statement. “Avenatti then spent the money principally for his own personal and business purposes.”
Last year, Avenatti gained recognition when he represented adult film actress Stormy Daniels in a defamation lawsuit against President Trump. A federal judge in California later dismissed the suit and ordered Daniels to reimburse Trump for legal expenses.
