Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing porn star Stormy Daniels, on Monday threatened to sue Daily Caller reporters if they continue to write “hit pieces” about him, hours after the publication wrote that Avenatti never paid a former business associate more than $160,000 for coffee beans.
This morning, Avenatti emailed Daily Caller reporter Peter J. Hasson and threatened to sue if he continued to publish “hit pieces” against him.
“Off the Record … If you and your colleagues do not stop with the hit pieces that are full of lies and defamatory statements, I will have no choice but to sue each of you and your publication for defamation,” Avenatti wrote in an email to reporter Peter Hasson.
“During that process, we will expose your publication for what it truly is. We will also recover significant damages against each of you that participated personally. So if I were you, I would tell Mr. Trump to find someone else to fabricate things about me. If you think I’m kidding, you really don’t know anything about me. This is the last warning,” he added.
Note: @MichaelAvenatti tried to call this off record, which of course aren’t terms I agreed to since it was an uninvited email pic.twitter.com/Ve6Guftwqq
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) May 14, 2018
Hasson said he decided to make the letter public because he never agreed to talk to Avenatti off the record.
Last week, David Morris, the CEO of coffee bean supplier Dillanos Coffee, alleged Avenatti owed him $160,179 for product he received but never paid for in 2013. Morris, whose company provides the coffee beans to Tully’s Coffee, said Avenatti had failed to pay for weeks’ worth of coffee beans and the supplier cut him off, which forced the shops to close.
In since-deleted tweets, Morris had said, “So @StormyDaniels hot shot lawyer Michael owes my small company @Dillanos $160,179 for coffee. He talks a big talk about integrity. We trusted him.”
Last Thursday, Morris said he and Avenatti had resolved the issue.
Twitter did not delete my tweet, I did. My company @Dillanos Coffee Roasters worked out an arrangement with @MichaelAvenatti
— David J. Morris (@coffeemaverick) May 10, 2018
That same day, the Daily Caller spoke with Avenatti about the allegation and was told he did not owe Morris anything and the claim was “nonsense.”
