Michael Avenatti's Lawyers Argue for 6 Month Sentence as He Has Suffered Public Ridicule

Michael Avenatti's lawyers argued to a judge on Wednesday for a sentence of no more than six months behind bars for their client, saying the attorney has suffered enough from public ridicule and the three months he spent in prison after his bail was revoked last year.

"He cannot go anywhere in public without inducing and subjecting himself to vitriolic comments and abuse. These circumstances alone would deter anyone in Avenatti's shoes from engaging in similar conduct," the lawyers wrote about Avenatti.

They noted that the calculation from the Probation Department on federal sentencing guidelines called for 11 to 14 years in prison, but they believed no more than six months in prison and one year of house confinement was enough.

A jury concluded Avenatti tried to extort $25 million from the sportswear company Nike, and sentencing is scheduled for June 30.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

Lawyers said Nike and a man who ran a youth basketball league in Los Angeles he once represented as he negotiated with Nike had not lost money from the crime, and a recurrence was impossible since Avenatti will never practice law again.

"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," they wrote.

Avenatti, 50, reached the height of his fame in 2018 as he represented porn star Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against then-President Donald Trump.

In 2019, he was arrested in the Nike extortion case and was also charged in Los Angeles federal court with defrauding former clients and others of millions of dollars. Months later, he was charged with defrauding Daniels of hundreds of thousands of dollars she was owed for a book deal. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is awaiting trial in the other cases.

Last year, he 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 including a severe fever and coughing.

Prosecutors declined through a spokesperson to comment. They are scheduled to make their own sentencing recommendations later this month.