Michael Avenatti pleads guilty to wire fraud, tax fraud

Disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti plead guilty to a litany of fraud charges on Thursday in a Santa Ana, California federal courtroom after bilking millions from his clients.

According to the CBS News, Avenatti plead guilty to four counts of wire fraud and a single count of tax fraud, and admitted to misappropriating funds from clients totaling around $10 million.

Between January of 2015 and March 2019, prosecutors alleged that Avenatti defrauded at least five clients of around $10 million in settlement funds, with the money being used to help with bankruptcy and debt problems, as well as some spending for himself.

Avenatti also admitted that he blocked "IRS efforts to collect unpaid payroll taxes of an estimated $5 million and include payroll taxes that had been withheld from employee paychecks of a Tully's Coffee operated by an Avenatti-owned company," according to CBS News.

Avenatti made an open plea in the case, meaning no agreement was made with the prosecution regarding sentencing before he admitted his guilt.

Sentencing is scheduled for September 19th, with Avenatti potentially facing as many as 83 years in federal prison could face several years in prison and be forced to pay restitution up to the amount of $10 million.

In July of 2021, Avenatti was convicted of extortion after trying to get Nike to pay him $25 million that he said was owed on behalf of a Los Angeles youth basketball team. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and wept hysterically in response.

In February of this year he was convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges related to his former client Stormy Daniels. Daniels had alleged having an illicit affair with former President Donald Trump in 2006. She further alleged that she received hush money when Trump was running for office not to speak of it. She signed a book deal to write a tell-all, but Avenatti forged her signature and received her payments directly to himself.

Avenatti was sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding Stormy Daniels and combined with the prior extortion charges is already due to spend at least five years in prison. That doesn't account for any additional years from the fraud counts he plead guilty to today.

According to CBS News, Avenatti still faces 31 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and tax-related charges in relation to false statements he allegedly made "in an attempted to get a bank loan, aggravated identity theft for misusing the name of a tax preparer, and false statements he made after his law firm was forced into bankruptcy."

Avenatti's epic downfall follows a meteoric rise within Democratic talking circles. For a brief time he was a political darling who appeared on CNN and MSNBC to jockey himself as a pseudo masculine antidote to Trump.