(FreedomBeacon.com)- Celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti has officially fallen from grace. Over the weekend, he notified a federal court in Southern California that he intends to plead guilty in all the remaining cases against him.
Avenatti rose to fame when he represented adult film star Stormy Daniels in a lawsuit she filed against former President Donald Trump. She claimed at the time that Trump paid her to keep her quiet about a secret relationship she had with him.
CNN and many other liberal media networks had at one point touted Avenatti as a potential future presidential candidate for the Democrats, but that far-reaching scheme isn’t happening now. The lawyer was a frequent guest on many media news networks leading up to the presidential election in 2020, but now he’s going to be spending some time behind bars.
Earlier this week, Avenatti announced he would plead guilty for all the cases that were remaining against him. In total, he was levied with 36 different counts of perjury, embezzlement, fraud, failure to pay his taxes and some other crimes that are financially related.
By announcing he is going to plead guilty in the remaining cases, the criminal litigation against him will formally come to a close.
Avenatti was recently sentenced to spend four years in federal prison because he stole proceeds from a book that was supposed to go to Daniels, his former client. The lawyer has spent 2.5 years behind bars already for a separate conviction for fraud, and now he’ll need to spend another 2.5 years there — at least.
Avenatti found himself in jail originally because he was found guilty of attempting to extort the company Nike. In 2020, he was convicted of that charge, which is related to claims that he threatened to ruin the reputation of the company if they didn’t make payments to him that totaled roughly $25 million. He was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison in that case.
The most recent two-year sentence came down due to his conviction for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft when he took a portion of the proceeds from Daniels, who was his client at the time.
Now that he’s pleading guilty to all of the remaining criminal charges against him, it’s likely that Avenatti will spend much more time in prison than just another 2.5 years. In a filing that Avenatti’s legal representation filed on Sunday, he wrote:
“Despite repeated efforts over the last year by Mr. Avenatti and his counsel, including substantial efforts made in the last 30 days, defendant has been unable to reach a plea agreement with the government. Mr. Avenatti wishes to plea in order to be accountable; avoid his former clients being further burdened; save the Court and the government significant resources; and save his family further embarrassment.”
Before deciding to change his plea to guilty in those criminal cases, he was set for a criminal trial that was to begin at the end of next month.
