Attorney Michael Avenatti has been arrested and charged with extortion, wire, and bank fraud for trying to extort $20 million out of Nike and using a client’s money to pay his own personal expenses.
NBC News’s Tom Winter tweeted:
NBC News: Attorney Michael Avenatti was arrested by the FBI New York field office in midtown Manhattan today at 12:30pm a spokesperson tells NBC's Joe Valiquette.
— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) March 25, 2019
BREAKING NEWS / AVENATTI CHARGED AGAIN: He is charged out of Los Angeles with embezzling a client’s money in order to pay his own expenses and debts and also defrauded a bank by using phony tax returns to obtain millions of dollars in loans. @anblanx reports. https://t.co/TItFHS399N
— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) March 25, 2019
Video:
A bonkers news cycle gets crazier as Michael Avenatti is arrested and charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, and extortion. pic.twitter.com/0tflWJv1OY
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) March 25, 2019
Michael Avenatti was about to hold the press conference that he threatened Nike with that would cost them $10 billion in market valuation:
Tmrw at 11 am ET, we will be holding a press conference to disclose a major high school/college basketball scandal perpetrated by @Nike that we have uncovered. This criminal conduct reaches the highest levels of Nike and involves some of the biggest names in college basketball.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 25, 2019
But the SDNY swooped in and put an end to Avenatti’s plans:
Press conference today at 2:30 @SDNYNews to announce charges against Michael Avenatti for attempting to extract more than $20M in payments from Nike by threatening to garner publicity to inflict financial & reputational harm if his demands were not met https://t.co/atshBN5Nvl
— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) March 25, 2019
Avenatti was caught on tape threatening Nike unless he was paid. It turns out that there was a good reason why Aventatti was able to tangle so successfully with Trump world. It turns out that he may be cut from some of the same cloth as Trump’s crew. There has been a lot of crazy news over the last 72 hours, but the story is the most out of left field yet.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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