Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen Settle Suits, Ending 15-Month Drama

Bringing to an end a drama that began in March of last year and played out on the national stage—a drama that frequently swung between tragedy and farce—former Donald Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen has agreed to settle two outstanding lawsuits with AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels. Cohen signed a settlement document from federal prison in upstate New York, where he is serving a three-year sentence, CNN reports, in part for his role in arranging a “hush money” payment to keep Daniels quiet about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. Cohen signed the settlements on June 6, but they were revealed on Friday in a report by Vanity Fair magazine. Cohen told the magazine that he finally decided to settle the suits with Daniels because he was tired of feeling victimized by Trump, and defending his now-estranged former employer’s questionable actions. Vanity Fair did not specify exactly which lawsuits had been settled, however. “Why would I continue to defend and protect the man who continuously attacks me and my family?” Cohen told Vanity Fair. “It’s time he answers to the American people for his own dirty deeds.” According to the agreement itself, however—as reported by Vanity Fair—both Daniels and Cohen agreed to the settlement in order to “avoid the expense and inconvenience of litigation,” but for no other reason. Neither Daniels nor Cohen admitted any liability and neither will pay the other any money as a result of the settlement. The drama began on March 6, 2018, when Daniels and her then-attorney Michael Avenatti filed lawsuit against Cohen and Trump, demanding to be freed from the non-disclosure agreement Daniels had signed in exchange for a $130,000 payoff. Bt almost exactly one year later, on March 8, 2019, a federal judge in Los Angeles threw that suit out of court, as AVN.com reported. Judge S. James Otero said in his ruling that the suit was no longer relevant because Trump and Cohen had agreed to stop trying to enforce the NDA, and Daniels herself had simply ignored it, discussing her brief affair with Trump in numerous television interviews and writing about it in her memoir, published last October. While Trump has been largely unaffected—other than being identified in Cohen’s federal plea deal as “Individual 1,” Cohen’s co-conspirator in the Daniels payoff—and Daniels has become a national celebrity outside of the adult industry, both Cohen and Avenatti have experienced dizzying falls from grace as a result of the Trump-Daniels scandal. While Cohen ended up in federal prison, Avenatti could be headed there himself. Among numerous other charges, he has been accused of stealing $300,000 from Daniels by diverting revenues from her advance book royalties, using the cash largely to support his own extravagant lifestyle, as AVN.com reported. Avenatti has flatly denied the accusation. Photo By Gary / Wikimedia Commons