LOS ANGELES _ Los Angeles lawyer Michael Avenatti was indicted Wednesday on charges of stealing from his former client Stormy Daniels by skimming money from her deal to write a memoir detailing her alleged sexual affair with Donald Trump.
It was the third time in two months that federal prosecutors have charged the celebrity attorney with criminal wrongdoing. Daniels is the sixth Avenatti client whom prosecutors say he defrauded.
A federal grand jury in New York accused Avenatti of forging Daniels' signature on a document instructing her literary agent to wire her money to him.
"Far from zealously representing his client, Avenatti, as alleged, instead engaged in outright deception and theft, victimizing rather than advocating for his client," said Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Prosecutors said Avenatti improperly diverted more than $297,000 to his own bank account and used it for personal expenses, including the lease of a Ferrari.
On Twitter, Avenatti denied the charges.
It was Daniels who made him famous last year by hiring him to sue Trump to void a nondisclosure agreement she signed before the 2016 election. In exchange, the adult-film star was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump.
Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty last year to a campaign-finance felony for orchestrating the deal. Prosecutors say Trump directed Cohen to pay the hush money to Daniels, a stripper who has performed in more than 150 pornographic movies over the last two decades.
When the scandal broke in early 2018, Avenatti fueled the media frenzy in scores of interviews with Anderson Cooper, Megyn Kelly, George Stephanopoulos and other television news personalities.
Daniels' book, "Full Disclosure," was published in October; Janklow & Nesbit Associates was her literary agent. The book included graphic details of her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump at a Lake Tahoe resort.
Tensions between Avenatti and Daniels spilled into public view in November.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, told the Daily Beast that Avenatti treated her with disrespect, ignored requests for an accounting of her crowdfunding money and, against her wishes, filed a second suit against Trump for defamation. Avenatti denied her allegations.
A federal judge dismissed both of Daniels' lawsuits against Trump. He ordered Daniels in December to pay Trump $292,000 to cover the president's legal fees. Two months later, Daniels and Avenatti parted ways for reasons neither disclosed.
"He knew that I was unhappy and looking for new counsel," Daniels told a crowd at a book promotion event in Washington.
The FBI arrested Avenatti in New York on March 25 after secretly recording what prosecutors allege was an attempt to extort Nike in conversations with the company's lawyers.
Avenatti threatened to hold a news conference that would take billions of dollars off the company's market value unless it paid a client $1.5 million and hired Avenatti and L.A. lawyer Mark Geragos for as much as $25 million to conduct an internal investigation, according to the FBI.
Geragos, identified by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator, was not charged with any crimes.
Avenatti was indicted in the Nike case on Wednesday.
The most serious legal jeopardy he faces is in California, where he faces a 36-count federal indictment. He is scheduled to be tried in August on charges of embezzling millions of dollars from clients, dodging taxes, defrauding a bank by submitting fake financial papers to get loans and concealing assets from creditors and the federal court that oversaw his law firm's bankruptcy.
Avenatti denies wrongdoing.
The clients whose money prosecutors say he stole include Geoffrey Ernest Johnson, a mentally ill paraplegic man on disability, and Michelle Phan, a makeup artist popular on YouTube.
He is also charged with embezzling most of a $2.75 million payment that Miami Heat basketball center Hassan Whiteside intended for an ex-girlfriend, Alexis Gardner, who was an Avenatti client.
