Michael Avenatti Arrested And Charged By SDNY For Alleged Nike Extortion Scheme (UPDATED)

By Karoli Kuns — March 25, 2019

"My head is exploding," Ali Velshi moaned after the news broke that Stormy Daniels' former lawyer has been arrested for an extortion scheme against Nike. The SDNY arrested Avenatti less than an hour after he tweeted that he had information about a scandal involving Nike.

According to the complaint, Avenatti called Nike on March 19, 2019 and "threatened to release damaging information regarding Nike if Nike did not agree to make multi-million dollar payments to Avenatti" and another unnamed person.

On March 20, 2019, Avenatti and the unnamed person talked to the attorneys for Nike where he once again demanded payment and said if those demands were not met "I will take ten billion dollars off your client's market cap...I am not fucking around."

At 9:16 AM today, Avenatti tweeted this:

Less than an hour later, the SDNY news Twitter account tweeted this:

Press conference today at 2:30 @SDNYNews to announce charges against Michael Avenatti for attempting to extract more than $20M in payments from Nike by threatening to garner publicity to inflict financial & reputational harm if his demands were not met https://t.co/atshBN5Nvl

— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) March 25, 2019

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles US Attorney's office has also brought charges against Avenatti on an unrelated case:

There are more Avenatti charges coming:

Federal prosecutors in LA will also announce charges of wire fraud and bank fraud against Avenatti at 2p ET. These charges are separate from the charges in SDNY that were announced at roughly the same time.

— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) March 25, 2019

And to think he was considering running for President just a few months ago. Looks like he'll be tied up for awhile.

UPDATE: He's lost Stormy

My statement regarding my former attorney Mr. Avenatti.. pic.twitter.com/9aKYCPNN6y

— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) March 25, 2019

UPDATE 2: WOW, there's reporting that Mark Geragos is Avenatti's co-conspirator. Geragos is a high, high profile celebrity attorney who defended Michael Jackson and others. Huge if true.

NEW: We report that alleged co-conspirator with @michaelavenatti in federally charged extortion scheme is celebrity attorney Mark Geragos @markgeragos Avenatti was recorded by lawyers at Boies Schiller @bsfllp with @rebeccadobrien
https://t.co/ZDJttHitNP via @WSJ

— Michael Rothfeld (@mrothfeld) March 25, 2019

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