Michael Avenatti may not have been a big-shot until he took the gig as the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, but his road to fame and riches — and serious legal trouble — began long before, according to filings cited by the Los Angeles Times.
That’s what Andrew Stolper, one of three lawyers who left Avenatti’s practice in 2015, alleges in the L.A. Times article.
Avenatti, who was charged Monday with scheming to extort $20 million from Nike NKE, -0.35% was once just another Southern California attorney in the tony town of Newport Beach, flying in a private jet and racking up six-figure tabs at Neiman Marcus. The nearly 200 pages of fraud charges, which were recently unsealed, give a glimpse into his life before his star turn.
In those documents, the Internal Revenue Service claims Avenatti reported $1.9 million in personal income in 2009 but didn’t pay $570,000 in taxes. The following year, he didn’t pay his $282,000 tax bill after reporting income of $1.2 million. According to prosecutors, Avenatti hasn’t filed a single income tax return since, despite depositing $18 million into various bank accounts associated with him.
“During these tax years, Avenatti generated substantial income and lived lavishly,” IRS investigator Remoun Karlous, an IRS criminal investigator, was quoted by the L.A. Times as saying in his sworn statement.
Here are just some of the big-ticket items, documents show:
- $217,000 at Neiman Marcus
- $117,000 at a luxury watch store
- $277,236 to Porsche dealers
- $100,000-a-month rent for a waterfront house in Newport Beach, Calif.
- $39,762 in Ferrari lease payments
- $123,825 in rent on his apartment in Century City, just outside of L.A.
Another revelation in all this, the L.A. Times reported, is that prosecutors allege that Avenatti, even as he was becoming a media darling, pilfered, or attempted to, a $1.6 million settlement from one of his clients.
Avenatti faces up to 50 years behind bars if he’s convicted in the tax and fraud cases, with another 47 years in the Nike charges.