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Michael Avenatti to change his plea to guilty in Orange County criminal case

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Michael Avenatti, the Southern California lawyer who represented porn star Stormy Daniels in a legal fight against former president Donald Trump and later was convicted of bilking her out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, announced on Sunday that he will plead guilty in the last of three criminal cases against him.

Avenatti submitted his intention to plead guilty to multiple charges in a federal case in the Central District of California that accused him of over 30 counts of embezzlement, perjury and tax-related felonies, according to a court document filed on Sunday.

He already is serving five years in prison, following his conviction in two other cases.

Avenatti, who once had offices in Newport Beach and Los Angeles, has been accused of stealing settlement money from several clients to help rescue his law firm from bankruptcy and to pay for other expenses.

“Despite repeated efforts over the last year by Mr. Avenatti and his counsel, including substantial efforts made in the last 30 days, defendant has been unable to reach a plea agreement with the government,” Avenatti’s defense team wrote in the court notice.

“Mr. Avenatti wishes to plea in order to be accountable; avoid his former clients being further burdened; save the Court and the government significant resources; and save his family further embarrassment,” it states.

The number of counts to which he would plead guilty and the possible sentences were not immediately clear on Sunday.

The Southern California trial was set to begin in July. Avenatti was accused in that case of taking over $10 million in settlement money from at least five clients between Jan. 2015 and May 2019. He was also charged with failing to pay associated taxes and lying under oath.

The change in the celebrity lawyer’s plea comes ten days after a federal judge in New York sentenced him to two and a half years for stealing book proceeds from Daniels.

Prosecutors said he pocketed about $300,000 of an $800,000 advance for “Full Disclosure,” Daniels’ account of what unfolded between her and the former president, which was released in fall 2018. The book’s publication came at a time when Avenatti’s law practice was failing financially.

Less than a year before he was sentenced in the Daniels case, Avenatti was convicted of attempting to extort millions of dollars from the Nike corporation, and he was ordered to spend two and half years in prison in that case.

Avenatti had threatened to publicly reveal claims that the sportswear conglomerate was illegally paying the families of elite high school basketball players, unless the company hired him to conduct an internal corruption audit at a cost of between $15 million and $25 million.

At trial, lawyers for Nike used words like “shakedown” and “stickup” to describe what they felt they were being subjected to when Avenatti threatened to stage a news conference to muddy Nike’s name by linking the company to a college basketball scandal.

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