In a victim-impact statement, Nike’s lawyers said Avenatti did considerable harm to the company by falsely trying to link it to a scandal in which bribes were paid to the families of NBA-bound college basketball players to steer them to powerhouse programs. In written sentencing arguments, prosecutors said Avenatti tried to enrich himself by “weaponizing his public profile” to try to force Nike to submit to his demands. The judge wrote that evidence showed that Avenatti “devised an approach to Nike that was designed to enrich himself” rather than address his client’s objectives.
Gardephe rejected a request by Avenatti’s lawyers to toss out his conviction in the Nike case on attempted extortion and honest services wire fraud charges.
Avenatti’s lawyers said six months in prison and a year of home detention was enough punishment. Probation Department’s recommendation of an eight-year prison term. Prosecutors requested a “very substantial” sentence, citing the U.S. Avenatti pleaded not guilty to all charges. California prosecutors said he was enjoying a $200,000-a-month lifestyle while cheating clients out of millions of dollars and failing to pay hundreds of thousands to the Internal Revenue Service.Ĭharges alleging he cheated Daniels out of proceeds from a book deal followed weeks later. Those political aspirations evaporated when prosecutors in California and New York charged Avenatti with fraudin March 2019. Avenatti explored running against Trump in 2020, boasting that he would “have no problem raising money.” Daniels said a tryst with Trump a decade earlier resulted in her being paid $130,000 by Trump’s personal lawyer in 2016 to stay silent. Avenatti represented Daniels in 2018 in lawsuits against Trump, appearing often on cable news programs to disparage the Republican president.
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