On Wednesday Porn star Stormy Daniels accused her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, of filing a defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump against her wishes, an allegation Avenatti said he was “very” surprised by.
Daniels, in a statement said that in addition to the defamation case, her attorney “has spoken on my behalf without my approval,” as well as started a new fundraising site to raise money for her without her knowledge. Daniels made the accusations in a statement to the Daily Beast,
“Michael has been a great advocate in many ways. I’m tremendously grateful to him for aggressively representing me in my fight to regain my voice,” Daniels told the Daily Beast. “But in other ways Michael has not treated me with the respect and deference an attorney should show to a client.”
Daniels aired her grievances publicly and added she hadn’t “decided yet what to do about legal representation moving forward.”
“He has spoken on my behalf without my approval. He filed a defamation case against Donald Trump against my wishes,” Daniels said of the lawsuit, which she lost last month and was ordered to pay the president legal fees. “He repeatedly refused to tell me how my legal defense fund was being spent. Now he has launched a new crowdfunding campaign using my face and name without my permission and attributing words to me that I never wrote or said.”
She added “I don’t want to hurt Michael, but it’s time to set the record straight,” Daniels said. “The truth has always been my greatest ally.”
Avenatti responded to Daniels’ claims. He said he had “personally sacrificed an enormous amount of money, time and energy toward assisting her because I believe in her.”
“I have always been an open book with Stormy as to all aspects of her cases and she knows that,” Avenatti said. “You need only look back at her numerous prior interviews where she states we talk and communicate multiple times every day about her cases.”
“The retention agreement Stormy signed back in February provided that she would pay me $100.00 and that any and all other monies raised via a legal fund would go toward my legal fees and costs. Instead, the vast majority of the money raised has gone toward her security expenses and similar other expenses. The most recent campaign was simply a refresh of the prior campaign, designed to help defray some of Stormy’s expenses.”
Avenatti said the second campaign was “simply a refresh of the prior campaign, designed to help defray some of Stormy’s expenses.”
Avenatti has taken a highly public and confrontational approach in his representation of Daniels, but his legal efforts have fallen short at some junctures.
The bad news for Michael Avenatti just keeps coming.
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