Attorney Michael Avenatti
The disgraced attorney Michael Avenatti was sentenced Monday to 14 years of jail and fined $11 million in restitution after fraud involving millions of dollars in 4 of his customers and obstruction.
Avenatti was found guilty earlier this year to four charges of wire fraud per client he robbed and one count of trying to hinder the implementation of the Internal Revenue Code. The prosecution claimed he hindered the IRS efforts to obtain $5 million of unpaid taxes on Tully’s Coffee.
The sentence imposed by Federal District Judge James Selna will begin after Avenatti is sentenced to a five-year jail sentence he’s serving now after having been found guilty in two trials in New York.
Avenatti also had to pay more than the sum of $10 million four customers and the IRS.
“Michael Avenatti was an unprofessional lawyer who claimed to be fighting for the poor. In reality, he was concerned about his own selfish desires,” US Attorney Martin Estrada declared in a statement after the sentence.
“To support his opulent lifestyle, which includes a fancy plane and racecars, he has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients. In the wake of his illegal activities and crimes, he’s been denied the right to practice law in California and, as a result, he is serving a long and deserved jail sentence.”
In an email to CNN, Dean Steward, an attorney for Avenatti, Said that Avenatti’s sentence “was overly harsh and uncalled for,” noting that his client described the sentence in court as “off the charts.”
The injustice is obvious when compared to other high-profile instances, according to Steward.
The sentence handed down on Monday is the latest chapter in an incredible legal drama that has lasted for years. Avenatti. Avenatti’s depiction of Stormy Daniels, the actress accused of having an affair with former president Donald Trump years before he ran for president, made the notorious attorney an international name.
“Avenatti’s fraudulent conduct was outrageous and the judge clearly intended to send a clear message. However, a sentence of 14 years is an incredibly long sentence given conditions,” said CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig.
The term ” Avenatti, ” serving a sentence, was imposed following his conviction for trying to steal thousands of dollars out of Nike and for stealing more than $300,000 of a book advance from Daniels, then his client. (Trump has denied any relationship in relationship with Daniels.)
Avenatti faced a statutory maximum of 83 years of jail in California.
In the spring of this year, when the Justice Department dropped the 31 remaining fraud charges, Avenatti faced earlier this year after he signed a plea agreement to plead guilty to a small number of tasks.
Federal prosecutors indicated in a court document on the day of the hearing that they’d not proceed in the case of the 31 remaining cases of bank fraud, wire fraud, and tax-related charges since the judge would have to examine the allegations if the time comes to sentence Avenatti.
In the course of pleading guilty earlier in the year, Avenatti confessed to the theft of thousands of dollars from clients, including $4 million from a customer who had a disability of a major.
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As per the charges, after Avenatti had negotiated settlements on behalf of the clients, which required payment to be paid to them and lied to clients about the conditions of the colonies, instead, he would transfer the funds to trust accounts for attorneys he was in charge of. Then, he would embezzle and steal the funds, per the indictment.
To avoid being exposed to the scheme, He would inform clients that the settlement’s proceeds had yet to be paid out, among other methods.
[…] Michael Avenatti was sentenced to 14 years of prison for theft of dollars from customers. […]