Court upholds Michael Avenatti conviction for defrauding Stormy Daniels
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of disgraced celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti for defrauding former client Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump.
The 3-0 decision was issued by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
Avenatti was sentenced to four years in prison following his February 2022 conviction for wire fraud and identity theft.
Prosecutors charged Avenatti over an alleged scheme to steal nearly $300,000 in book contract proceeds from Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and forging her signature on a letter to her literary agent.
Daniels was paid $130,000 just before the 2016 presidential election not to discuss her alleged encounter a decade earlier with Trump, who won the election.
Trump has denied the encounter took place, and now faces criminal charges related to the payment.
In the appeal, Avenatti's lawyer said the trial judge improperly instructed jurors by calling the misappropriation of client funds a «particularly serious» violation, and making it seem that Avenatti's ethics violations justified a fraud conviction.
The lawyer also said the judge wrongly prodded a holdout juror in open court to change her mind, in what amounted to a «public shaming.»
Avenatti became a fixture on cable TV and Twitter, now known as X, in 2018 and early 2019 after he began representing Daniels, who sued Trump to get out of a nondisclosure agreement she claimed was void.
The four-year-sentence partially overlapped Avenatti's 2-1/2-year sentence from his February 2020 conviction for extorting Nike (NYSE:NKE), for a combined prison term of five years.
Avenatti has been serving a
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