(RightIsRight.co) – Disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti, who is already in prison, has received a new 14-year sentence after he admitted to having obtained millions of dollars from his clients through fraud.
Avenatti, who is publicly known for his attacks against former President Donald Trump, was also sentenced to a $7 million restitution, Newsmax reported.
During Avenatti’s trial in Santa Ana, California, US District Judge James V. Selna said the former lawyer’s new prison sentence would run consecutively to a five-year term he is already serving.
Earlier this year, the former lawyer of porn star Stormy Daniels pleaded guilty to defrauding four of his clients and to committing tax crimes.
Even though he hadn’t reached a plea deal with the prosecutors, he declared he wanted to “be accountable and spare his family further embarrassment.”
According to the prosecution, he negotiated and collected settlement payments on his clients’ behalf. However, he subsequently put the settlement money in other bank accounts that he controlled.
Three of the four victims were in the Santa Ana courtroom, where Avenatti offered them his apology.
After the already incarcerated former lawyer pleaded guilty to the four wire fraud counts and one count of a tax crime, the government dropped the rest of the charges in his original 36-count indictment.
Michael Avenatti is already in prison in Southern California, where he is serving time on two separate cases.
In one of those, he was found guilty of stealing book proceeds from porn star Stormy Daniels, and in the other, he was found guilty of trying to extort shoemaking giant Nike to pay him $25 million. In the latter, he was sentenced to several felonies.
Avenatti became famous in the United States and worldwide as he represented Stormy Daniels during her lawsuits against the 45th US President, Donald Trump, while he was in office.
Daniels wanted to invalidate a 2016 non-disclosure agreement she signed with Trump and sued the acting president for defamation.
The lawsuits were unsuccessful, but the porn star’s legal counsel became known as an “anti-Trump lawyer” because of the public comments he made during them.
In 2018, Avenatti tried to prevent the confirmation of conservative US Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He made public accusations by a client that in high school, Kavanaugh would spike drinks at parties to set up girls for gang rapes.
However, the accuser retracted the claims and said the layer had misrepresented them.
