Michael Avenatti Charged With Bank and Wire Fraud After Allegedly Trying to Blackmail Nike For $20M

Brittany M. Hughes | March 25, 2019
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If the recently released conclusion to the Mueller report weren’t enough to make your Monday, here’s a cherry on top: former Stormy Daniels attorney and anti-Trump blowhard Michael Avenatti was arrested Monday and charged with wire and bank fraud related to an alleged scheme to extort $20 million from Nike.

According to the criminal complaint, Avenatti reportedly “devised a scheme to extort a company by means of an interstate communication by threatening to damage the company’s reputation if the company did not agree to make multi-million dollar payments to Avenatti and [co-conspirator], and further agree to pay an additional $1.5 million to a client of Avenatti’s.”

Just before being arrested, Avenatti claimed in a tweet Monday that he’d uncovered a “major high school/college basketball scandal" involving the sports apparel company that he planned to reveal during a press conference Tuesday.

However, Avenatti had allegedly told Nike that he’d nix the presser if they agreed to pay his unnamed client $1.5 million and hired him and another California lawyer to conduct an internal investigation for $15 million to $25 million, according to Bloomberg.

From CNBC:

The complaint says that last Wednesday, Avenatti and a cooperating witness spoke by phone with lawyers for Nike “during which Avenatti stated, with respect to his demands for payment of millions of dollars, that if those demands were not met ‘I’ll go take ten billion dollars off your client’s market cap ... I’m not f---ing around.’”

In layman’s terms, we just call that blackmail.

Ironically, Avenatti had also tweeted less than a day ago calling for Trump to be impeached for "violat[ing] the law and commit[ing] crimes."

(Cover Photo: Luke Harold)

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