By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – Michael Avenatti, the disgraced celebrity lawyer who represented porn actress Stormy Daniels, will reconsider his 14-year prison sentence for defrauding four other clients, following a federal appeals court decision on Wednesday that could shorten his sentence .
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California said the judge who sentenced Avenatti erred by applying obstruction of justice and failing to consider the value of Avenatti’s legal services to his clients and the money that he paid them.
Avenatti, 53, has served a total of 19 years in prison, including five years for his 2020 and 2022 convictions in New York for his attempt to extort $25 million from Nike and defraud Daniels of proceeds from her memoir .
Before being indicted, Avenatti rose to fame representing Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in a lawsuit against Donald Trump, and became a vocal opponent on cable TV and Twitter of the former US president.
In Wednesday’s decision, the appeals court’s three-judge panel provided an additional possible reason for a shorter sentence.
It said the judge should have considered Daniels’ case and the other fraud cases as similar when deciding whether Avenatti’s five-year sentence and the new sentence should run concurrently.
Prosecutors said Avenatti defrauded the four additional customers out of millions of dollars.
Margaret Farrand, a federal public defender representing Avenatti, said in an email: “I am pleased that the Ninth Circuit recognized the errors that improperly increased Mr. Avenatti’s sentence.”
U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada’s office in Los Angeles did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Avenatti will be resentenced by U.S. District Judge James Selna in Santa Ana, California.
Selna imposed the 14-year term in December 2022 after Avenatti pleaded guilty to fraud and obstruction. A conviction at trial could have landed him in prison for life.
Avenatti’s legal career collapsed in March 2019, when he was indicted in the Nike case. The federal appeals court in Manhattan rejected his appeal in that case and the Daniels case.
The case is US v. Avenatti, 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-50301.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
