Supreme Court rejects Michael Avenatti’s appeal
WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from 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 was sentenced to 2 1⁄2 years in prison after his conviction on charges that included attempted extortion and honest services fraud.
He 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 disgraced celebrity lawyer rose to fame representing adult film star Stormy Daniels over a hush money payment from former President Donald Trump. As the high court’s rejection came down, Trump was sitting in a Manhattan courtroom listening to closing arguments in a trial over whether he knew about that payment and falsified records to hide its true purpose.
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 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.
But the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said last year 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 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 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 Supreme Court ruled in 2010 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 representing Daniels in a lawsuit over what she said was a bid by Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign to prevent her from speaking about having sex with him.
In June 2022, Avenatti was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing book proceeds from Daniels. Six months later, he was sentenced to another 14 years for cheating clients out of millions of dollars and failing to pay taxes.