The rise and even more spectacular fall of former anti-Trump darling Michael Avenatti

Former lawyer Michael Avenatti is headed to jail for 14 years. Avenatti is only the latest “colourful character” who rose to prominence during the Trump era to end their time in public life with a jail sentence, but he’s distinct in so far as most came to prominence defending Trump, rather than as one of his more successful attackers.

The rise

It can be hard to remember, given the relentless exhausting scandal factory that was the entire Trump presidency, but in early 2018 the revelation that adult film star Stormy Daniels had been paid to keep quiet about an affair she’d had with the president was widely thought to be the scandal that would bring Donald Trump down once and for all.

In October 2016, Trump’s then lawyer and man with powerful “first guy to get whacked in a mob film” energy Michael Cohen had paid Daniels $130,000 to not discuss an affair she’d allegedly had with Trump 10 years earlier. Avenatti, as Daniels’ lawyer, became a darling of the liberal end of American mainstream news circuit, regularly turning up on CNN and MSNBC. He headlined Democratic Party events, telling party members in Iowa: “When they go low, I say, we hit harder.”

A charismatic and forthright character, his profile became such that he was widely discussed as a potential presidential candidate, viewed as a “fight fire with fire” response to Trump’s belligerence (and milquetoast Democrats acquiescence). He started a political action committee and even held fundraisers. The Washington Post found him credible enough to list him among 15 potential 2020 candidates.

The Kavanaugh nomination

And then, almost as suddenly, it all started to go wrong.

Avenatti represented Julie Swetnick, who claimed to have witnessed then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — who was facing two historic allegations of sexual assault in the bitter lead-up to his appointment — “cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of boys”.

Swetnick later backtracked on parts of her statement, and the “unnamed declarant” behind a second statement Avenatti claimed corroborated Swetnick’s story came forward to say Avenatti had twisted her words. Avenatti was accused of shifting the focus from the other claims against Kavanaugh and allowing him to scrape on to the Supreme Court benches.

The fall

Around this time, Avenatti was arrested, though not charged, in relation to a domestic violence allegation, which he denied. On March 25 2019, he had what can only be described as a “total shocker”. First, he was arrested in New York, charged with attempting to extort around US$25 million from Nike by “threatening to use his ability to garner publicity to inflict substantial financial and reputational harm on the company if his demands were not met”.

The very same day in Los Angeles, there was another cluster of charges, including embezzling clients’ money and “defrauding a bank in Mississippi” (which at least had a little “old-timey grifter” charm about it). From here it just continued to collapse. We don’t have time to go into every additional detail, charge and ill-gotten private jet that followed over the remainder of 2019, but the picture put forward by prosecutors was of “money generated from one set of crimes … used to further other crimes”.

Avenatti at the time insisted he was innocent and tweeted that in his 20 years “fighting David and Goliath battles”, he had made “some powerful enemies”.

In February 2020, Avenatti was found guilty of attempting to extort Nike, and in July 2021 he was sentenced to 30 months in prison. In February this year he was convicted in a New York Federal Court of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud for stealing $300,000 from Daniels while helping her negotiate her book deal. In June, he was sentenced for four years in prison.

Finally, this week, he was sentenced to 14 years for wire fraud and ordered to pay back $7 million to four former clients.

He had changed his tune from earlier in the case. “I am deeply remorseful and contrite,” he said. “There is no doubt that all of them deserve much better, and I hope that some day they will accept my apologies and find it in their heart to forgive me.”