Avenatti Accused by Grand Jury of Lying to Another Client, Claiming a $2 Million Settlement Hadn't Been Paid, and Using That $2 Million for Himself to Go Sharsies on a... Private Jet

You may have heard of this jet; the feds seized it.

The scheme described here by John Sexton is similar to the con Avenatti ran on the paraplegic client: After having gotten a settlement, supposedly for the client, Avenatti took the money for himself. Most of the settlement was paid up-front, but Avenatti told the client, falsely, that it would all be paid monthly over eight years.

Avenatti then made some of those payments out of the settlement money he already had his greedy little paws on.

But he only made some of the "monthly scheduled payments." From the LA Times:

Avenatti wound up making 11 payments to Gardner, misrepresenting them as Whiteside's monthly installments, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. By the time the payments stopped in June 2018, Avenatti had given her about $194,000, prosecutors say.

For the next nine months, they allege, Avenatti deceived Gardner, telling her that Whiteside was breaching the settlement by skipping payments.

$194,000 out of a $3 million settlement.

Meanwhile, Avenatti was the co-owner of a private jet.

posted by Ace of Spades at 01:54 PM

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