Michael Avenatti convicted of cheating Stormy Daniels out of nearly $300,000

Michael Avenatti was convicted on Friday of charges he cheated the adult film actor Stormy Daniels out of nearly $300,000 she was supposed to get for writing a book about an alleged tryst with former president Donald Trump.

Avenatti dumped his lawyers and decided to represent himself shortly after the trial began, setting up a face-to-face showdown with Daniels, his former client, who appeared in a new role as star witness.

Prosecutors portrayed Avenatti as a common thief and serial liar. He countered by seeking to cast himself as a white knight who came to the rescue of Daniels until he turned on her.

Avenatti still faces other legal problems.

He has yet to begin serving a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence he received in 2020 for trying to extort up to $25m from sportswear giant Nike.

He is also awaiting a retrial in Los Angeles on charges that he ripped off clients and others for millions of dollars. He represented himself last year for six weeks before a mistrial resulted.

Daniels had initially hired Avenatti as she was trying to escape the terms of a $130,000 hush payment deal that kept her from speaking publicly about an alleged sexual encounter that Trump claims never happened.

Avenatti parlayed his representation with Daniels into a string of cable news appearances, in which he mocked and baited Trump.

The relationship between the two fell apart after Daniels said she learned that Avenatti had taken a share of her $800,000 book deal for himself.

Avenatti insisted he was innocent of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

After opening statements and two trial witnesses, he shed his lawyers and confronting witnesses himself, setting up his questioning of Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford.

Avenatti asked her about things she had said for a potential program called Spooky Babes about living in a haunted house in New Orleans.

Text messages, prosecutors said, showed that Avenatti repeatedly lied to Daniels in 2018 when she pressed him on when she would get a large installment she was owed on the book deal. They said he had already spent the money on airfare, food and payroll for his debt-ridden law firm.

Podolsky likened Avenatti to a store cashier taking $1,000 out of a register because he believed he had worked really hard and deserved a bonus.