Things ain’t going well in Stormy Daniels’ legal cases.
Just last week she filed another lawsuit – this one against her first lawyer, Keith Davidson, who she accused of conspiring against her to help President Donald Trump. What are the odds that, when looking for a lawyer to sue Donald Trump, she’d end up with a lawyer that was acting as a secret double agent? Pretty low, but we’ll see how that case plays out.
In his place, Daniels hired Michael Avenatti, who has been anything but camera-shy during this whole ordeal. Avenatti, who currently owes millions to the IRS (RELATED: Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Owes $5 Million to IRS), is crowdfunding Daniels’ legal fees, presumably because Daniels can’t afford his services on her own, or doesn’t want to pay them. Daniels has an estimated net worth of $2 million, but legal fees could eat up a considerable portion of that.
The crowdfunding campaign for legal expenses was started by Avenatti himself, and because of that, the $577,000 raised is “his” instead of Stormy’s. And that technicality matters, because Avenatti is in financial jeopardy (hence why he’s not taking on this notable case pro-bono). In fact, according to the Daily Beast, Stormy may not benefit a dime. “On Monday, lawyer Jason Frank asked a judge to help him collect the $10 million judgments he won against Avenatti’s Newport Beach firm, Eagan Avenatti, last month, by forcing the company to give him all legal fees that may be collected from 54 clients.”
While Daniels is not a client of Eagan Avenatti (Michael Avenatti is working with her at “Avenatti & Associates”), the two firms are linked. Michael Avenatti commonly uses his Eagan Avenatti email address and identifies himself with the company. According to Judge Frank, this means that Daniels’ money is fair game, which then can also be surrendered to pay towards the $10 million judgments.
The crowdfunding campaign began in March and was designed to help Stormy cover “legal bills, security costs and any damages she might be ordered to pay Trump” for breaking their nondisclosure agreement.
Given the hundreds of thousands of dollars this process is going to cost Stormy (in addition to the $577k in dead money), she certainly must regret taking $100,000 in the first place.