Michael Avenatti had been getting bad legal news lately.
The Supreme Court declined to review his convictions for attempting to extort Nike. Then the justices refused to consider his fraud and identity theft convictions stemming from his representation of Stormy Daniels.
But on Wednesday, a federal appeals court gave some hope to the former celebrity Trump antagonist by ordering a resentencing in yet a third criminal case — the one carrying the most prison time by far.
I am thankful that a UNANIMOUS three judge panel of the 9th Circuit threw out my draconian prison sentence today. The sentence was always grossly unjust and violative of my most basic constitutional rights, but the government sought it anyway solely because of who I am. We ALL…
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) October 23, 2024
In that one, Avenatti pleaded guilty to fraud in 2022 for stealing from clients, for which he got a whopping 14-year sentence. That followed a 30-month term in the Nike case and four years in the Daniels case. Thirty months of the term for bilking Daniels’ book advance was ordered to run consecutively with (that is, in addition to) the Nike sentence, adding up to a five-year term. The judge in the fraud case then ordered the 14 years to run consecutively as well, putting Avenatti’s total time at 19 years.
In vacating the 14-year term and ordering the resentencing, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said the trial judge, James Selna, overvalued the losses for which Avenatti was responsible when handing down the punishment. The panel also faulted the George W. Bush appointee for running the sentence consecutively to the Daniels term, as opposed to concurrently (or at the same time). Unlike the Nike case, which involved an attempt to extort a company, the panel said the Daniels case “was similar enough to be part of ‘the same course of conduct’ as the instant offense, because both involved misappropriating client funds.” The panel also said the judge failed to make specific findings for an obstruction of justice enhancement he imposed. So what will this ultimately mean for Avenatti, 53, whose current release date is listed in 2035? We’ll have to see how the trial judge handles the resentencing — which in turn could prompt still further appeals. But even if the reprieve winds up being relatively short-lived, it’s a bit of good news for Avenatti in a stretch where he’s been losing, and in the case in which he stands the most to gain. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in Donald Trump’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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