Avenatti’s Stormy Fall From Grace

Michael Avenatti, who was on every TV news network over the past few months – and claimed he would run for President – has fallen … and fallen hard. This week he was charged in NY with extortion and conspiracy when he attempted to extort $25 million from Nike. Apparently, Avenatti claimed Nike was improperly paying families of high school basketball players. The arrest came 15 minutes after he announced he would be holding a press conference to reveal the information about a high school and college basketball scandal involving Nike.

On the same day, Avenatti received two indictments in LA, one for bank fraud (when he allegedly defrauded a Mississippi bank by submitting fictitious personal tax returns to obtain more than $4 million in business loans) and wire fraud (when he allegedly stole money from a former client’s settlement fund. And recently he was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence in LA. And even Stormy Daniels weighed in, stating that she was not surprised and that she would be coming out with a statement of her own against him.

While he proclaims his innocence, the bank and wire fraud claims will be won or lost on documents. That is, either the bank application was accurate or was not. And either he duped a client or he did not. As far as the extortion claim, if he did threaten Nike to settle or he would go public, that also appears to be a very strong case.

Mr. Avenatti, who had a wild ride up when he rode with Stormy, is going to see many stormy nights ahead!