Stormy Daniel’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti may not be around to try the case against Donald Trump and Michael Cohen. It seems that Avenatti actually managed to win a case for a client and a settlement agreement was reached.
But, the client never saw a dime and when he questioned Avenatti, he was told they had not received any of the money yet. Avenatti offered to loan his client, Gregory Barela, money at 10% interest. Barela refused and then hired new lawyers to collect the money owed to him.
The new lawyers found out that Avenatti had indeed received the money but had withheld it from the client.
The Daily Beast — by no means a conservative-leaning media outlet — just reported on the latest bad news for Avenatti, namely a legal claim by a former client that alleged the attorney ran his firm’s finances like a “Ponzi scheme” and was pocketing for himself settlement funds that rightly belonged to the client.
The claim was recently filed with a private arbitration organization known as Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, or JAMS, by a former client named Gregory Barela, according to The Daily Beast
The claim charged that Avenatti — as well as two unnamed associates — had withheld payments of a settlement Avenatti won for Barela, and even attempted to loan Barela money he was due with 10 percent interest when Barela continued to ask about when he would receive his settlement.
One of Barela’s new attorneys, Stephen Bledsoe, told The Daily Beast, “Mr. Barela hired our firm to investigate what happened to the settlement payment that he was supposed to have received early last year.”
Bledsoe added, “As part of our investigation, we contacted the lawyer for the settling party and he gave us a copy of the unaltered settlement agreement and the wire-transfer confirmation showing that his client made the settlement payment to the bank account specified by Mr. Avenatti five days before it was due.”
This appears to be very bad news for Avenatti. If the charges are true, not only would he be fitted for an orange jumpsuit, but would without a doubt be disbarred as well.