The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Michael Avenatti’s attempt to get the justices to review his convictions stemming from his former representation of Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, who testified against Donald Trump in his New York criminal case earlier this year.
It’s the latest high court rejection for the celebrity Trump antagonist after the justices in May declined to take up his appeal from separate convictions for attempting to extort Nike.
In both instances, Justice Brett Kavanaugh was recused, which the justice didn’t explain but could be due to Avenatti’s representation of a woman who made disputed claims against Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation in 2018.
Avenatti’s latest bid followed the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding his fraud and identity theft convictions in his Daniels case. The appeals court said the evidence against him was “overwhelming” in the case involving his pilfering of the adult film star’s book advance money.
The Justice Department didn’t even bother to respond to Avenatti’s high court petition, and the justices didn’t request a response, suggesting Avenatti’s petition was on its way to denial, which the court confirmed Tuesday in passing on the petition. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Avenatti, 53, is held in a low-security facility in San Pedro, California, with a listed release date of July 31, 2035. 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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