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Michael Avenatti sentenced to 30 months in prison in Nike extortion case

By Shayna Jacobs and Devlin Barrett
July 8, 2021|Updated today at 2:59 p.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/avenatti-sentence-nike-trump/2021/07/08/149d95e8-df58-11eb-9f54-7eee10b5fcd2_story.html

NEW YORK — Michael Avenatti — the lawyer who made headlines representing an adult-film actress who claimed an affair with former president Donald Trump — was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Thursday for trying to extort Nike, Inc.

Avenatti was convicted in February 2020 of transmission of interstate communications with intent to extort, attempted extortion and honest services wire fraud in connection with efforts to shake down Nike for as much as $25 million during what he said was a negotiation for his client, a youth basketball coach.

Prosecutors argued at trial that Avenatti was trying to earn a payday for himself, at the expense of Nike’s reputation and trading value, by threatening to expose alleged wrongdoing within the company if it did not meet his demands to settle.

"Mr. Avenatti had become drunk on the 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 rules which apply to everyone else didn't apply to him," said U.S. District Court Judge Paul G. Gardephe.

The judge excoriated the celebrity lawyer for his conduct, but gave him a tremendous break on what could have been a nine- to 11-year prison sentence. In explaining his decision, Gardephe cited the Justice Department's decision not to charge another high-profile lawyer who the judge said was a key player in the scheme.

The youth basketball coach, Gary Franklin, didn’t know Avenatti was using his name to try to negotiate a hefty payday with the athletic apparel giant, according to prosecutors.

They alleged that Avenatti approached Nike with the demand just before the company’s quarterly earnings call and with the high-profile NCAA basketball tournament about to start. He allegedly insisted that the company pay him and another attorney millions of dollars to investigate internal wrongdoing. If not, he allegedly said, he would expose what he knew.

In a recent filing, prosecutors asked the judge to issue a “very substantial term of imprisonment,” calling Avenatti’s conduct “an egregious abuse of trust.”

A separate indictment is pending against Avenatti in federal court in Manhattan on charges he defrauded other clients, including adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a one-night sexual encounter with Trump.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Daniels was paid for her silence by Michael Cohen, who at the time was Trump’s attorney and later became one of his harshest critics. Trump has denied the encounter with Daniels and the payoff.

As the attorney for Daniels, Avenatti became a regular fixture and Trump antagonist on cable news, at one point exploring a 2020 Democratic primary bid.

When given the chance to speak on Thursday, Avenatti tearfully described how he had “lost” his way and put superficial desires above his family and ethics. “I’ve learned that all the fame, notoriety and money in the world is meaningless,” he said. “T.V. and Twitter, your Honor, mean nothing.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Podolsky said there has yet to be “any true expression from remorse” from Avenatti. He argued that the extortion case wasn’t about “tough negotiations” or “a thin line” that was crossed.

“It was about deceit, it was about threats, it was about taking from others and it was about abuse of trust,” the prosecutor said.

Michael Avenatti was stuck in ‘rat-infested’ Manhattan jail cell and went nearly a week without a shower, letter to court says

Avenatti has already served more than three months in jail. His attorneys wrote in a presentencing memo that he had “spent months in horrific conditions of solitary confinement and isolation.”

They said the embattled legal advocate should serve no more than six months total, followed by a year of home confinement. The memo noted that Avenatti was convicted of “non-violent offenses that caused no direct loss to either Nike or Coach Franklin.”

“The principals of deterrence, punishment, and protection of the public do not warrant a lengthy sentence in this case,” wrote Avenatti lawyers Scott A. Srebnick and E. Danya Perry. They added that their client “will never practice law again,” eliminating the risk that he could reoffend in a similar fashion.

Srebnick and Perry also argued Avenatti’s “epic fall and public shaming,” which included being “openly mocked” by Trump, serves to reduce the chances he would engage in “similar conduct” again.

In court, Perry pushed for leniency calling Avenatti “a completely humbled man who has been beaten down by himself.”

The lawyers asked Gardephe to factor in Avenatti’s grueling stint in the Manhattan Correctional Center before his release to home confinement last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Avenatti is slated to stand trial next year in the Daniels case.


Barrett reported from Washington.

By Shayna Jacobs
Shayna Jacobs is a federal courts and law enforcement reporter on the national security team at The Washington Post, where she covers the Southern and Eastern districts of New York. Twitter
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By Devlin Barrett
Devlin Barrett writes about the FBI and the Justice Department, and is the author of "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election." He was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for National Reporting, for coverage of Russian interference in the U.S. election. Twitter

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/avenatti-sentence-nike-trump/2021/07/08/149d95e8-df58-11eb-9f54-7eee10b5fcd2_story.html