Avenatti Gets New Sentence of 11 Years in Prison for Fraud (1)

Former celebrity lawyer and Donald Trump antagonist Michael Avenatti’s 14-year criminal sentence was reduced to a little more than 11 years Thursday by a California federal judge.

Judge James V. Selna in the US District Court for the Central District of California resentenced Avenatti to 135 months. He credited Avenatti for the 40 months, roughly three years, has already served in a related case, so Avenatti will serve 95 months more in prison in this case.

A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel last October ordered the trial court to recalculate Avenatti’s sentence. The panel found the original sentence incorporated an unwarranted obstruction of justice enhancement, among other legal errors.

Selna’s position at the start of the hearing was to give Avenatti a more lenient, 121 month sentence.

However, he upped that sentence by 14 months after hearing arguments from prosecutors and testimony from one of Avenatti’s former clients, Alexis Gardner.

Gardner said she expected a “life-changing” settlement eight years ago, but Avenatti strung her along with “sporadic” payments that were just enough “to wait and maintain a dynamic of trust” but not enough to prevent her from being evicted and having her lights shut off.

“Guidelines are only advisory, but I do not believe a sentence at the low end of the range I have calculated reflects the seriousness of the crime,” Selna said.

‘Unrepentant’

Avenatti pleaded guilty in Los Angeles to wire fraud and embezzling settlement funds from four of his clients. He’d already been found guilty in two New York federal trials for stealing adult-film star Stormy Daniels’ book advances, and trying to extort $25 million from Nike Inc.

Avenatti had pushed to dramatically reduce his sentence to three years. His lawyers argued the legal services and money he provided to the clients he stole from hadn’t been considered, and he’s significantly helped other inmates as a suicide watch companion.

“Avenatti, from the beginning of his career has had a part of him that’s really seeking to make the world a better place,” said Margaret Farrand, with the Office of the Federal Public Defender.

Prosecutors sought to leave the sentence mostly untouched. Assistant US Attorney Brett Sagel told Selna during rebuttal arguments that Avenatti remains “unrepentant” and his suicide prevention work is self-serving, similar to pro bono work he did for two immigrants and an investigation into R. Kelly when Avenatti’s star rose in 2018.

“Every time he does something, he wants everybody to know what he’s doing,” Sagel said.

Gardner pushed in a sentencing letter for the maximum prison time available, saying that if Avenatti “were a murderer, incarceration would prevent future murders. As a fraudulent lawyer, his weapon is paperwork and the system still hands him ammunition.”

The new sentence will be served concurrently to his sentence in the Stormy Daniels case, as ordered by the Ninth Circuit. Originally, the California sentence was to be served in addition to the New York sentence.

The Ninth Circuit also called for Selna to recalculate the amount of money Avenatti owes to victims. Selna declined to adopt the value proposed by Avenatti’s defenders, which was lower than prosecutors by millions of dollars.

Selna said their calculation included services Avenatti provided outside the scope of their fee agreements, like medical care and housing.

He noted no case law holds that benefits outside of attorney-client fee agreements must be included in this calculation, but no case law says otherwise, either, so it’s “something for the Ninth Circuit to resolve.”

Selna ordered Avenatti to pay around $9 million in restitution to victims of his theft, others who paid the victims on his behalf, and the IRS, a decrease from the $10.8 million Avenatti was ordered to pay in 2022.

The June 3 sentencing of fellow Los Angeles celebrity ex-lawyer convicted for embezzling client settlement funds Tom Girardi loomed over Avenatti’s hearing. Girardi on June 3 was sentenced to about seven years in federal prison for wire fraud. Selna noted Avenatti has “a constellation of enhancements” bulking up his sentence that Girardi didn’t have.

Comparing Avenatti to Girardi, Sagel said: “I’m certain the defendant sitting to my right is not an 86 year old gentleman suffering from significant mental decline.”

The case is USA v. Avenatti, C.D. Cal., No. 8:19-cr-00061, resentencing hearing 6/12/25.