Court calls restitution complaint ‘meritless’ and evidence of Michael Avenatti’s guilt ‘overwhelming’ in resounding defeat of appeal for stealing Stormy Daniels’ book advance money

Stormy Daniels Hosts A Party At The Abbey

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA – MAY 23: Stormy Daniels and attorney Michael Avenatti are seen at The Abbey on May 23, 2018 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Tara Ziemba/Getty Images)

Fallen attorney and inmate Michael Avenatti lost out on his appeal of his convictions in a fraud and aggravated identity theft case connected to his swindling of his then client, porn star Stormy Daniels, of book advance money she earned from her memoir “Full Disclosure.”

After Avenatti initially parlayed his fame as Daniels’ celebrity lawyer into a sustained media and social media blitz complete with aspirations of challenging then President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, his ascent dramatically shifted to complete collapse and suspension from the, upon convictions for disgracing the legal profession to extort Nike, to defraud Daniels, and to rip off other clients.

On Wednesday, a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit counted the ways Avenatti’s appeal of his convictions in the Daniels case failed to persuade. U.S. Circuit Judges Eunice Lee and Sarah Merriam, Joe Biden appointees, and Steven Menashi, a Donald Trump appointee, were in agreement that “any error in the jury instructions” in the Daniels case “was harmless,” as the evidence was “overwhelming” that Avenatti stole $297,500 in book advance money from Daniels by having an employee “forge his client’s signature for the purpose of wrongfully obtaining her money.”

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