Convicted in federal court in Lower Manhattan Feb. 14 of extorting Nike for $25 million, 50-year-old George Washington-law-graduate Atty. Michael Avenatt was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge Paul G. Gardephe to 30 months in federal prison. Once hyped by CNN as a legal analyst because Avenatti represented 75-year-old former President Donald Trump’s alleged mistress Stormy Daniels, Avenatti became a sensation on CNN in 2017, doing everything possible to beat Trump. Aventatti made the rounds on liberal cable news but was featured as CNN’s the man who could best prevent Trump from becoming president but, once president, to get him out of office. Avenatti once boasted on CNN that he could raise the necessary cash and beat Trump as the Democrat Party’s most likely nominee in the 2016 presidential election.
Avenattt faces two more criminal suits, one in New York and one in Los Angeles, both for fleecing his attorney’s trust account, robbing clients of their settlements to fund his lavish lifestyle of fast cars, private jets, Cabo vacations and a etsetter lifestyle. Judge Ardephe said Avenatti “had become drunk on power of his platform, or what he perceived the power of his platform to be. He had become someone who operated as if the laws and the rules that applied to everyone else didn’t apply to him,” hitting on some key points. But no one at CNN, including CEO Jeff Zucker, questioned Aventatti about anything as long as he went after Trump. Avenatti’s hatred of Trump was his calling card at CNN, ignoring the warning signs that the 50-year-old attorney was beyond the pale. Avenatti complimented former Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin perfectly.
Toobin, as most people know, was exposed on Zoom playing with himself Oct. 19, 2020 while on the air, then suspended the same day. Toobin could do no wrong at CNN, as long as he found Trump culpable legally for any crime, real or imagined. Toobin was reinstated on June 10 as CNN’s chief Legal Analyst. Mabey Aventatti will be reinstated on CNN after he’s released from prison. Aventatti found out quickly what got him air-time at CNN, slamming Trump for just about everything, especially after he wasn’t charged for violating campaign finance laws after having his former attorney Michael Cohen arrange to get Stormy Daniels paid off before the 2017 presidential election. Avenatti came to CNN fame representing Stormy Daniels, promising to upend Trump 2016 presidential campaign, or, once in office, hounding the former president out of office.
Aventatti’s defense in federal court was he never did anything wrong, despite the tape recordings of him threatening to expose Nike unless they paid him $25 million or hired him as ethical consultant to monitor Nike’s amateur athletics. When you consider Avenatti’s cosmic arrogance, it’s not all the different from his talking of running against Trump in 2016 because the Democrat Party didn’t have someone smart enough to beat him. “I and I alone have destroyed my career, my relationships and my life,” Avenatti told the judge before sentencing. Avenatti’s savvy enough to know that he had to prostrate himself before the court to get a lighter sentence. Prosecutors wanted 96 months or eight years in prison, not the judge’s 30-month sentence pronounced today. “Your honor, I’ve learned that all the fame, notoriety and money in the world is meaningless. TV and Twitter, your honor, mean nothing.”
Avenatti threw his mercy on the court after spending 100 days in solitary confinement in New York’s notorious federal correctional facility. Gardephe showed leniency because Avenatti was the only one charged, despite the fact that 63-year-old Atty. Mark Geragos participated in the plan to extort Nike. Geragos was the first of the two to contact Nike before the famous defense attorney took a silent role in the scheme to extort the world’s richest Sports company with annual income of $40 billion. To Geragos and Avenatti Nike had the deep pockets to extort a measly $25 million. Avenatti faces two more law suits about stealing settlement money from clients to finance his extravagant $200,000 a month lifestyle. Whether convictions in those cases gets him more prison time is anyone’s guess. Avenatti has been disbarred, unlikely to ever practice law again in the U.S.
Whether admitted to or not by Avenatti’s defense Dayna Perry told the court that his client was genuinely contrite. But to have done what Avenatti did to himself, it’s more than just bad judgment or hubris, something far more pathological. Avenatti apologized to the court and to his children. “Because if they are ashamed, it means that their moral compass is exactly where it should be,” Avenatti told the court. With his wings clipped and facing 30-months in federal prison, Avenatti had nothing to lose, humbling himself to the court. But Perry lost a golden opportunity to present the mental illness behind Avenatti’s insane behavior. When he told CNN’s audience he wanted to run against Trump, it was a red flag for bipolar disorder, where mania and grandiosity take over one’s life. Avenatti gave his mea culpa but never got treated for an obvious mental illness.
