Attorney Michael Avenatti has been given permission to represent himself in a Manhattan federal court case in which he stands accused by former client and porn star Stormy Daniels of stealing money she made from a book deal.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman approved the request after Avenatti claimed he had a “breakdown” with his lawyers on trial strategy.
The move will allow Avenatti, who denies the wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges he faces, to question Daniels on her claims that he improperly pocketed nearly $300,000 out of the $800,000 advance on her book deal for her autobiography Full Disclosure. If convicted, Avenatti faces a maximum sentence of 22 years in prison.
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“This is a case about a lawyer who stole from his client, a lawyer who lied to cover up his scheme. That lawyer is the defendant Michael Avenatti,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Rohrbach.
Avenatti’s defense attorney, Andrew Dalack, argued in court on Monday that Avenatti did not steal the money but rather was acting on a deal that had been made between Avenatti and Daniels to split proceeds from a book deal. Dalack also claimed Avenatti loaned Daniels hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“This has no business in federal criminal court,” Dalack said, according to the Associated Press. “And Mr. Avenatti is not guilty.”
Avenatti, 50, rose to national acclaim in 2018 after he represented Daniels in multiple lawsuits against former President Donald Trump. The lawsuits claimed that Trump’s administration paid Daniels $130,000 in 2016 to keep quiet about an affair she had with Trump 10 years before he ran for office. Trump denies the accusations.
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Avenatti is facing other criminal cases. He was arrested and jailed in January 2020 and has been in home confinement in California since April of that year.
Avenatti was found guilty in 2020 of attempting to extort Nike for up to $25 million and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. He has not started the prison sentence yet. Avenatti represented himself for six weeks in an embezzlement case last year after clients alleged he cheated them out of millions of dollars, which resulted in a mistrial and is awaiting a retrial.
