Michael Avenatti Sentenced to 2 1/2 Years for Trying to Extort Nike

Michael Avenatti was sentenced Thursday to 2 1/2 years in prison for trying to extort Nike Inc. for more than $20 million, capping the public downfall of a celebrity lawyer whose star turn as Stormy Daniels’s pugnacious lawyer ended in criminal charges.

Mr. Avenatti, 50 years old, was convicted after a jury trial in February 2020 on all three counts he faced: extortion, transmission of interstate communications with intent to extort, and wire fraud. The case grew out of Mr. Avenatti’s threats to expose purported corruption in Nike’s elite basketball program unless the apparel giant paid him to conduct an internal investigation.

Before handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe called Mr. Avenatti’s conduct outrageous and said he operated as if laws that apply to everyone else didn’t apply to him.

“Mr. Avenatti had become drunk on the power of his platform,” Judge Gardephe said in a Manhattan federal courtroom.

The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office had asked Judge Gardephe to impose a “very substantial sentence” in line with probation officials’ recommendation of eight years imprisonment. Prosecutors said Mr. Avenatti “betrayed his client’s trust and sought to enrich himself by weaponizing his public profile in an attempt to extort a publicly traded company out of tens of millions of dollars.”