Michael Avenatti, the attorney who represented Stormy Daniels in a lawsuit against former president Donald Trump, was ordered to pay $148,750 in restitution to Daniels on Friday.
Avenatti was convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in February for embezzling nearly $300,000 away from the porn actress after she signed her book deal. He is serving a four-year prison sentence in Manhattan.
The former lawyer rose to fame after freeing Daniels from a non-disclosure agreement with Trump over their alleged sexual encounter. Daniels reportedly received $130,000 from Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to keep quiet about the relationship.
Daniels published her memoir, Full Disclosure, in 2018 after being freed from the non-disclosure agreement with Trump.
Avenatti was found guilty of diverting nearly $300,000 of the proceeds form Full Disclosure, after prosecutors claimed that he forged Daniels’s signature to tell the publisher where to send the money, according to Reuters.
Daniels testified in January that “Michael had been lying and stealing from me” after promising he would “never take a penny” from the book proceeds.
The restitution charges are less than the initial embezzled amount because Avenatti has already paid some money back to Daniels. Avenatti has also been ordered to pay $259,800.50 to Nike after he tried to extort millions of dollars from the company.
Avenatti represented Daniels in a defamation lawsuit against Trump in 2018 , which Daniels ultimately lost after an appeal and was left with $300,000 in legal fees to the former president. She claimed Avenatti filed the lawsuit “without my permission and against my wishes.”
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