He was also ordered to pay more than $7 million to his four victims, and $3.2 million to the government.
In his sentencing remarks, U.S. District Judge James V. Selna said that though Avenatti had done “good things in his life,” he had “also done great evil,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
And, again, this is only the latest sentencing of Michael. From WIKIPEDIA:
Extortion conviction and sentence
On March 25, 2019, Avenatti was arrested in New York City, and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York announced that they were charging Avenatti with attempting to extort up to $25 million from U.S. athletic apparel and shoe company Nike by threatening to make damaging charges against the company.[106][107] Avenatti allegedly claimed that Nike improperly made payments to families of high school basketball players.[108] The arrest came about 15 minutes after Avenatti announced he would be holding a press conference the next day, at which he claimed he would reveal information about a high school and college basketball scandal involving Nike.[72]
During the afternoon of March 25, Avenatti and an unnamed co-conspirator were scheduled to meet with lawyers from Nike, at which prosecutors allege he would have offered to cancel the press conference in exchange for payment.[72] Avenatti's suspected co-conspirator was identified as Mark Geragos.[107] Avenatti was released on a $300,000 bond that evening.[109]
On February 14, 2020, Avenatti was found guilty on all three counts related to the attempted extortion of Nike.[110] He faced potentially more than 40 years in prison.[3][15] On July 8, 2021, Judge Paul G. Gardephe sentenced him to 30 months in prison.[18]
Fraud and embezzlement charges
Also, on March 25, 2019, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Nicola T. Hanna, announced in Los Angeles the filing of a 197-page complaint accusing Avenatti of wire fraud and bank fraud.[72] The indictment said that Avenatti had embezzled money from a client and had defrauded a Mississippi bank by submitting false tax returns to obtain more than $4 million in loans. Prosecutors also alleged that Avenatti had not filed personal tax returns for the years in question.[111]
On April 10, 2019, Avenatti was charged by a federal grand jury in Santa Ana, California with embezzling funds that his client, NBA player Hassan Whiteside, had wired to him in January 2017 to pay a settlement to his ex-girlfriend. Avenatti stands accused of withholding client funds and applying most of the settlement money of $1.75 million, along with his included $1 million fees, to invest $2.5 million in a share of a private jet. He is further accused of misrepresenting Whiteside's settlement payment as monthly installments, which he paid out until June 2018, totaling $194,000. Federal agents subsequently seized a Honda HA-420 twin-engine jet from Santa Barbara Airport co-owned by Avenatti and former client, Indigo Systems co-founder William J. Parrish, as the latter was about to embark on a flight. Parrish successfully sued Avenatti in 2017 for $2.1 million for failure to repay a 2013 loan. Avenatti had not appeared in court to defend himself and appealed that judgment. Avenatti denies the charges.[112][113]
On April 11, 2019, 36 additional financial crime charges were announced by the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.[114][115] Avenatti is accused of stealing money from clients to purchase a $5 million private jet he co-owned, as well as fraud related to tax documents and banking information.[116] According to U.S. Attorney Hanna, "[m]oney generated from one set of crimes was used to further other crimes, typically in the form of payments designed to string along victims." The purpose of his crimes was "to prevent Mr. Avenatti’s financial house of cards from collapsing."[116] Vowing to "fully fight" the additional charges and appealing to the public to presume his innocence, Avenatti stated on Twitter that "[f]or 20 years, I have represented Davids vs. Goliaths and relied on due process and our system of justice. Along the way, I have made many powerful enemies."[116]
On May 22, 2019, Avenatti was charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft as a result of allegations that he stole money from former client Stormy Daniels while helping negotiate her 2018 book deal.[117][118] Avenatti pleaded not guilty. Avenatti was released on a $300,000 bail bond on the conditions that he notify authorities of any travel plans and that he have no contact with Daniels.[118]
On February 4, 2022, Avenatti was convicted in a New York federal court of identity theft and wire fraud for stealing from Daniels. He was ordered to surrender to U.S. Marshals by February 7[119] In May 2022, Avenati's attorneys submitted a letter of apology to Daniels, saying he was "truly sorry," and that he failed her in many respects.[120] On June 2, 2022, Avenatti was sentenced to 4 years in prison.[121]
On December 5, 2022, Avenatti was sentenced by James V. Selna in a California court to 14 years in prison for wire fraud as well as obstruction against the IRS in their effort to collect $5 million in unpaid payroll taxes for Tully's Coffee.[21]
Poor Rachel. No one could have guessed he was a crook, right? Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Avenatti" from 2018:
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot;"
Monday, December 5, 2022. A reporter harms his own story, more questions about the Talibanis, closet case Moqtada declares war on Iraq's LGBTQ community.
About 70 e-mails have come in asking why I'm ignoring the report regarding Twitter and censorship.
First, I've posted several videos about those Tweets. Like this one.
Second, Tweets. Not reporting.
The journliast has made himself a joke and legacy media is mocking him. If you care about the story, you don't set yourself up to be a joke.
He did not report. I've waited for him to come off his manic high, get some sleep and actually report. That still hasn't happened.
Tweeting is not reporting.
I love Cher. She Tweets. Love her singing, love her as a friend, in awe of her acting when she totally commits. But her Tweets?
Please.
I have issues, vision issues, yes, but also medical eye issues. I now have to limit the amount of screen time. I do not have time to scroll through over thirty Tweets and try to provide the context that the reporter was too lazy to do.
If he will stop partying and start reporting, I'm happy to note it. But stop pretending that he's reported. He's Tweeted. It's not reporting -- it's not even reading the headlines in a news break.
"An appeal for your patience." Sabby notes he said that online. If you want to break a story on Friday, break it on Friday. Report on Friday.
"Information.'' That's what he said he was posting. And that is what he post. It's not curated. It's not journalism. If he had worked at Twitter you could call it whistle-blowing.
He did an information dump and then he went away. Days later, there's still no report. Sabby in her video rushes to defend him.
I'm not attacking him. But I am making the very obvious point that Tweets are not reporting. This demanded a reporter, this topic, who could go through this information and explain what was going on, examples could be supplied, reporting could be done.
Equally true, if an agreement was made -- and one was with Musk -- then you disclose what the agreement was. That's basic when it comes to ethics.
He has been attacked by the media.
A lot of those attacks? He brought on himself. There are basics and the most basic of all basics? You have a report before you go public. That's how you avoid being scooped. Peter Baker isn't going to go on ABC THIS WEEK and tell viewers, "In a day or two, at THE NEW YORK TIMES, I'll have a great story for you about . . ." He writes the story before he promotes it.
You know who does the opposite way? Liars and whores. Like in 2008. Barack Obama was talking about the rights of unions and how trade deals harmed US employees. Then THE ASSOCIATED PRESS found out and reported that Barack's campaign was telling Canada not to worry, that this was just talk to get votes. That's when John Nichols goes on DEMOCRACY NOW! It turns out, John maintains, it was Hillary, it was all Hillary. St. Barack was innocent and still walked on water and Johnny 5 Cents would be reporting this at THE NATION.
There was no such report because John Nichols was lying. He was trying to provide cover for Barack until interest moved on to another story.
Those are the type of people who brag about stories before they're published.
If you want to be taken seriously -- or your work taken seriously -- you publish it and then you talk about it.
"I sincerely hope that Tara Reade can get some sort of justice," says Sabby Sabs.
Can we f**king focus?
Apparently, we can't.
Yes, Tara Reade came forward. Yes, she told the truth. She's an awful bitch but that doesn't change the fact that she was assaulted. It also doesn't have to do with the Tweets released on Friday.
Had the reporter issued a report, we might be better able to focus.
Instead it's nonsense -- it's ice cream left in the sun, melting with Sabby and others trying to scoop it up in their hands. And doing a lousy job. Why is she bringing in Tara? Well, she and Tara are friends, for one reason. Another bad behind the scenes move. But also because Sabby doesn't understand the information because the reporter didn't do the work required.
Some newbies are going to say 'reporter'? About 18 years ago, as a favor, I was asked not to name the reporter here ever. This was by someone who loves the reporter. I didn't. I haven't. He's popped up in videos but I haven't commented on him until now. When we interviewed Evan Bright ("Evan Bright Puts Big Media To Shame") about his coverage of Stephen Green's trial (March 12, 2006, Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi's parents Fakhriya Taha Muhasen and Qassim Hamza Raheem) and five-year-old sister (Hadeel Qassim Hamza) were taken into the parents' bedroom by US soldier Steven D. Green where they were murdered. Abeer was in the living room with Paul Cortez and James Barker who were gang-raping her. It is one of the most explosive of the War Crimes from the Iraq War.) , Evan brought up the reporter. After that, the big question was do we name the reporter -- due to my promise? Name but no comments are printed but Evan's, was my reply. That way I kept my promise not to discuss the reporter.
What the reporter has now done with Twitter goes to exactly why someone who loves the reporter would worry I would rip him apart. It's not up to standard and I know what's going on when reporting isn't taking place.
I can't evaluate the story or its claims because there is no story. The reporter has failed to file one. It's as though Woodward and Bernstein wrote, "There was a break-in at The Watergate Hotel and President Nixon was behind it. That is all. We're rushing off to snort coke and we'll be back in a few days with more." That's not reporting. Hell, it's not even good gossip.
The reporter needs to do his job which is to file a report. A series of Tweets is not a report.
Some of the criticism the reporter is now facing is of his own creation and could have been avoided if he'd done his job. Instead, he Tweeted on Friday and it's now Monday and we still have no report.
Staying with bad journalism, last week, we called out IRAQ OIL REPORT for its bad fluff piece on Bafel Talabani. From Thursday's snapshot:
Turning to Iraq, we're reminded that 'access journalism' is all about whoring. IRAQI OIL REPORT is an outlet that charges for its mediocre content. Despite charging for its content, it breaks no news, it produces nothing of value. So I generally ignore it.
But they decided to really whore this time. The interview Bafel Talabani with one soft ball question after another and pretend he's answering truthfully. They can't even get to truth in the 396 words of the preamble to the interview.
Lot
of words to pretend Bafel's not part of the problem. The issues with
Bafel go beyond he's PUK and the dominant party is KDP (PUK has still
not rebounded from the lies of Jalal and Hero Talabani when they spent
months defrauding the country and pretending that Jalal was healthy
enough to govern as president of Iraq when, in fact, he couldn't speak
and he couldn't move and, per the Constitution, he should have been
removed from office). Bafel can't even get along with other member of
the PUK -- and that includes his failure to get along with his own blood
relatives.
At the start of November, Amberin Zaman (AL-MONITOR) noted:
The difference today is that not only are the parties at odds with each other, they are also mired in internal rivalries. Lahur Talabany,
former co-chair of the PUK who led the Sulaimaniyah region’s
intelligence services and the US-trained Counter Terrorism Group, was
ousted by his cousins Bafel and Qubad Talabani last summer in a
Byzantine power grab. It was the most overt manifestation yet of the
intra-family feuds simmering in the Talabani and Barzani dynasties.
If you're still not getting it, check out the latest this morning from REUTERS:
On Oct. 7, shortly after Hawker Abdullah Rasoul set off in an SUV from his home on a leafy street in Erbil, a bomb ripped through the car, killing him and wounding four family members.
Rasoul was an intelligence officer, and a defector.
After nearly two decades with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a party dominated by the Talabani family, he moved to Erbil this year and switched sides, three security sources and a Kurdish source told Reuters.
When he was killed, Rasoul, 41, was helping the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the party ruled by the Barzani family that he had been keeping tabs on for years, the sources said.
The brazen assassination was captured by security cameras and the KDP released a 27-minute video about the killing, pointing the finger of blame firmly at the PUK.
The PUK has strongly denied the accusations, saying they are politically driven, but the killing has triggered a series of incidents that have strained the power-sharing arrangement.
Let's wind down with notorious closet case Moqtada al-Sadr. Moqtada al-Sadr is scum of the earth. He leads a cult and, over the years, the US press has decided to go soft on him and present as a leader (he's not) and a kingmaker (never) instead of as the cheap ass thug he actually is. He's flaunting his true colors again. Daniel Stewart (360 NEWS) notes:
"I vow to confront homosexuality or the LGBTQ community through ethical, peaceful and religious means, against this violation of the innate characteristics on which humanity is built," according to a statement accompanied by his signature and posted on Twitter by his spokesman Salé Mohamed al Iraqi.
The cleric has reiterated his message by calling for the creation of an abolition of the alleged law of homosexuality in Iraq because "it cannot be a door to generalize this affliction".
In reality, homosexuality has been legal in Iraq for 20 years because the country does not have a law explicitly criminalizing it.
However, it does have a regulation prohibiting "immodest acts," probably the one Al Sadr was referring to, which Human Rights Watch has described as a "vague provision that could be used to target minorities."
Poor, dumb and uneducated Moqtada. He can never by a religious leader above 'cleric' because he doesn't have the background and couldn't get it even when he ran off to Iran in 2007. Poor idiot Moqtada.
And, please don't forget, that two years ago, he explained 'the gay' caused other things as well:
And maybe those who've been stupid enough to promote Moqtada over the last three years could wake up to reality?
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