Michael Avenatti’s lawyers have requested that he serve no longer than six months in prison after he was found guilty by jurors in an attempt to extort $25 million from Nike, according to the Associated Press.
According to a sentencing memorandum in Manhattan federal court from Avenatti’s lawyers, the once-popular California attorney has faced severe public scrutiny and should therefore receive a lighter sentence:
Avenatti’s epic fall and public shaming has played out in front of the entire world. The Court may take judicial notice of this fact, as Avenatti’s cataclysmic fall has been well-documented. He is openly mocked by the former President of the United States and his preferred media outlets, to the glee of millions of the former President’s followers and supporters.
The lawyers also noted that Avenatti “cannot go anywhere in public without inducing and subjecting himself to vitriolic comments and abuse,” adding that those “circumstances alone would deter anyone in Avenatti’s shoes from engaging in similar conduct.”
Avenatti, who represented former porn star Stormy Daniels in multiple lawsuits against former President Donald Trump, was arrested in 2019 and found guilty in 2020 of attempting to extort Nike by using his connections within the media to tarnish the company’s reputation and influence the price of its stock unless he was paid $25 million.
As reported by the Associated Press, last year Avenatti “was freed in April to home confinement from the Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan at the height of the initial wave of the coronavirus in U.S. prisons after he said he was uniquely vulnerable after a bout with pneumonia six months earlier and complained that a cellmate had recently been removed with flu-like symptoms.”
Avenatti, who has also been charged with defrauding certain clients and others out of money, is scheduled to be sentenced on June 30.
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