December 03, 2018 |
Stormy Daniels Declares Avenatti Feud Ended, Plans to âKick Assâ |
After Stormy Daniels suddenly went public last week with an attack on her own lawyer, Michael Avenatti, accusing the attorney of failing to properly account for funds raised for her legal cases, the AVN Hall of Famer and Donald Trump antagonist now says that everything is copacetic between her and her media-friendly lawyer after all. "Pleased that Michael and I have sorted shit out and we know the accounting is on the up and up,” Daniels wrote on her Twitter account Sunday. “We are going to kick ass together on two coasts tomorrow.” Daniels did not address, however, a second public criticism of Avenatti that she leveled in her statement last week, in which she claimed that the Southern California-based attorney filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump on her behalf but without her approval. That lawsuit was thrown out by a federal judge in October and Daniels was ordered to pay Trump’s attorney’s fees. Trump has since demanded $342,000 in compensation from Daniels, a sum which Avenatti dismissed as “a number created out of whole cloth.” But Daniels earlier sued Trump over the $130,000 hush money agreement that she signed, and that lawsuit is still pending. “Be clear: Any attorney’s fees that may be awarded in the defamation case (that is going to be reversed on appeal) are but a small fraction of what Trump & Cohen will owe Stormy in the main NDA case,” Avenatti wrote on his own Twitter feed Monday. “We have already forced them to admit they lied to the court and the judge repeatedly.” Avenatti also addressed the accounting issues raise by Daniels, concerning a crowdfunding campaign for her legal expenses and personal security costs, posting on Twitter what he said was a ledger showing how the money has been allocated. “There has been a lot of misreporting about the money Stormy Daniels and I raised for her legal costs/expenses. See the real facts below,” Avenatti wrote. “As you can see, we did not do this for the money. We did it because it was the right thing to do. And we will continue to do so.” The accounting posted by Avenatti showed $587,415 raised through the crowdfunding campaign — against $637,434 in “out-of-pocket expenses” that include more than $350,000 for Daniels’ personals security measures. Avenatti also stated that four attorney have worked billable hours on Daniels’ case, running up costs of more than $1.6 million. Avenatti, however, appeared confident that his expenses would be covered — by Trump. He told The Daily Beast that he expects to receive a significant award of fees in the hush money case, once that case finally goes before a judge for a decision. “We have now forced Trump and Cohen to retreat in that case and basically admit we win,” Avenatti told The Daily Beast. “Thus they have to pay those attorneys fees and whatever Trump is awarded would be deducted from the $1,500,000 before Trump and Cohen have to write the check to Stormy.” Photo by The Circus / Wikimedia Commons
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