Michael Avenatti was convicted Friday of charges he cheated the porn actor Stormy Daniels out of nearly $300,000 she was supposed to get for writing a book about an alleged tryst with former president Donald Trump.
NEW YORK —
Prosecutors portrayed Avenatti as a common thief and serial liar. He countered by seeking to cast himself as a white knight who came to the rescue of Daniels until he turned on her. Daniels had initially hired Avenatti as she was trying to escape the terms of a $130,000 hush payment deal that kept her from speaking publicly about an alleged sexual encounter that Trump says never happened.
Avenatti asked her about things she’d said for a potential program called “Spooky Babes” about living in a haunted house in New Orleans. “Whether you think it’s kooky to believe in the paranormal, whether you think it’s weird. She can believe whatever she wants and still be stolen from by the defendant and still deserve not to,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mathew Podolsky told the jury.
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