Opening statements begin Monday in criminal trial of Michael Avenatti over Stormy Daniels' book deal
CNN
Opening statements are set to start Monday in Manhattan in a third criminal case against Michael Avenatti, the once high-flying celebrity lawyer who rose to fame by representing adult-film star Stormy Daniels in her bid to terminate a hush-money deal that silenced her allegations of an affair with former President Donald Trump.
The former lawyer, a pugnacious Trump critic who once considered a presidential run of his own, fell from grace after being hit with three federal indictments in a six-week period in 2019.
Prosecutors allege that Avenatti -- who helped negotiate the $800,000 advance for her September 2018 book "Full Disclosure" -- defrauded Daniels by instructing her literary agent to send two of the installments of the advance totaling nearly $300,000 to an account controlled by him, rather than directly to Daniels.
President Joe Biden asserted Friday that Hamas has been degraded to a point where it can no longer carry out the type of attack that launched the current 8-month conflict in Gaza, laying out a three-phase proposal Israel has submitted to wind down the grinding crisis as he declared, “It’s time for this war to end.