Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles say Avenatti embezzled a client’s money in order to pay his own expenses and debts as well as defrauding a bank by using fake tax returns. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in New York say Avenatti attempted to extort $20 million out of Nike by threatening to release damaging information about the company if it did not meet his demands. “I’ll go take ten billion dollars off your client’s market cap,” Avenatti told attorneys for Nike on March 19, according to a complaint filed by the Southern District of New York. “I’m not fucking around.”The Wall Street Journal reported that Avenatti’s co-conspirator in the Nike extortion scheme was celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos. Geragos represented Nike endorser Colin Kaepernick in his NFL collusion case and is currently representing Jussie Smollett in an alleged hate crime hoax.

Source: Huffington Post March 25, 2019 17:19 UTC