{"id":206907,"date":"2019-03-26T03:24:41","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T07:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=206907"},"modified":"2025-01-09T14:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T19:19:08","slug":"avenatti-charged-with-trying-to-extort-millions-from-nike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/03\/26\/avenatti-charged-with-trying-to-extort-millions-from-nike\/","title":{"rendered":"Avenatti charged with trying to extort millions from Nike"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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He claimed on Twitter that Nike funneled “large sums” of money to elite student-athletes bound for top colleges and said the corruption reached the highest levels at the company. (File Photo<\/a>: Michael Avenatti\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/p>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

LOS ANGELES \u2014 Even before federal prosecutors unsealed charges against Michael\u00a0Avenatti, the lawyer best known for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in legal battles against President Donald Trump was facing legal scrutiny for his business practices.<\/p>\r\n

Avenatti\u00a0was testifying Friday in his own defence in a civil case that included allegations he pocketed $1.6 million from a client as the feds were including that claim in their criminal case that could put him behind bars for decades.<\/p>\r\n

Avenatti, 48, faces charges in California for allegedly filing bogus tax returns to secure $4 million in loans and embezzling the client’s settlement funds. He faces charges in New York of threatening to release damaging information against Nike if it didn’t pay him and another lawyer up to $25 million.<\/p>\r\n

About 12 hours after being released from custody,\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0returned to his combative form Tuesday and went on the offensive, accusing Nike of “rampant” corruption.<\/p>\r\n

He claimed on Twitter that Nike funneled “large sums” of money to elite student-athletes bound for top colleges and said the corruption reached the highest levels at the company.<\/p>\r\n

Prosecutors haven’t commented on whether\u00a0Avenatti’s information about Nike was accurate but said he crossed a line by trying to enrich himself with threats.<\/p>\r\n

A Nike spokesman declined to answer questions about\u00a0Avenatti’s tweets. The company released a statement Monday saying it will “not be extorted or hide information that is relevant to a government investigation.”<\/p>\r\n

While he confidently declared after his release from custody that he would be exonerated,\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0told CBS on Tuesday that he is concerned about the charges.<\/p>\r\n

“I’m nervous, I’m scared,” he said. “If I wasn’t, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense.”<\/p>\r\n

The arrest of\u00a0Avenatti, who seized the spotlight as a Trump antagonist and considered his own run for president, came as a surprise to many, but not to some of those who have worked with him.<\/p>\r\n

Jason Frank, who was an independent contractor for the now-bankrupt firm of Eagan\u00a0Avenatti, has been seeking compensation he claims he’s owed for work done before he resigned in 2016, according to federal court filings.<\/p>\r\n

Frank is still trying to collect a $10 million judgment his firm won against Eagan\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0and a $4 million personal judgment against\u00a0Avenatti.<\/p>\r\n

Avenatti\u00a0repeatedly failed to turn over court-ordered records, and deposited millions of dollars of client fees into accounts hidden during bankruptcy proceedings, Frank’s lawyers wrote in filings seeking a court-appointed receiver.<\/p>\r\n

“The conduct described in the criminal complaint is the conduct we’ve seen Mr.\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0engage in with respect to his debts to his partners going back years,” attorney Andrew Stolper said.

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“What you see is a lawyer using his kind of inside knowledge of the legal system.”<\/p>\r\n

Most of a nearly $1.4 million payment sent to Eagan\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0as part of a settlement with the NFL was funneled to an account for personal expenses such as rent on a luxury apartment and monthly payments on a Ferrari, Frank’s lawyers said.

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On Friday, Stolper questioned\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0under oath at a debtor exam about a $4 million payment his firm received from Los Angeles County on behalf of a paraplegic man who tried to kill himself in jail.<\/p>\r\n

Avenatti\u00a0testified that he paid the firm’s client, Geoffrey Johnson, all the money he was owed, but checks show Johnson received monthly payments totalling no more than a couple of hundred thousand dollars over the past three years, Stolper said.<\/p>\r\n

In an email to The Associated Press,\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0said Johnson approved all transactions and accounting and has been kept in the loop.<\/p>\r\n

“He has repeatedly thanked me for my dedication to his case and the ethics I have employed,”\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0wrote.<\/p>\r\n

Avenatti\u00a0was also questioned in court about the case of Gregory Barela, who he negotiated a $1.9 million settlement for in an intellectual property dispute against a Colorado company, according to court records.<\/p>\r\n

Barela hired new lawyers to chase the money down after he said\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0wouldn’t pay him. They went to the FBI after finding records that $1.6 million was paid to\u00a0Avenatti.

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Attorney Steven Bledsoe sat in court Friday afternoon as\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0repeatedly dodged questions and denied stiffing Barela.<\/p>\r\n

“Avenatti\u00a0testified he paid Mr. Barela everything he was owed without ever identifying any payment,” Bledsoe said. “Documents show he didn’t pay anything. It was just B.S.”<\/p>\r\n

Prosecutors also dispute\u00a0Avenatti’s account.<\/p>\r\n

While he was still on the witness stand in Los Angeles, prosecutors filed a wire fraud charge in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana accusing\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0of embezzling from Barela.<\/p>\r\n

Prosecutors said\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0deceived Barela about the date he received the payment and never turned it over to him. At one point, he provided a $130,000 “advance” on the payment he already received and later offered to loan Barela $100,000 if he paid interest.<\/p>\r\n

“It appears Mr.\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0loaned the client’s own money to the client,” U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said in announcing the charges. “Money that Mr.\u00a0Avenatti\u00a0had already secretly collected.”<\/p>\r\n

Attorney Ken White, a former federal prosecutor, said the relatively short criminal complaints without disclosing too much evidence indicates prosecutors are confident they have a strong case. Indictments are likely to offer more information and, possibly, additional charges that could include evidence uprooted by Frank.<\/p>\r\n

“It will be interesting to see when the indictment finally comes down to what extent it’s going to mirror more of what his former partner’s been saying,” White said.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 Even before federal prosecutors unsealed charges against Michael\u00a0Avenatti, the lawyer best known for representing porn actress Stormy …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":177602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-brian-melley","mauthors-larry-neumeister","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206907"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281813,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206907\/revisions\/281813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}