Avenatti jury restarts deliberations after deadlock

NEW YORK — The jury deliberating the fate of Michael Avenatti on criminal charges that he ripped off his star client, Stormy Daniels, said on Thursday it was deadlocked on the first of two counts but then forged ahead at the urging of the judge.

A note sent to U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman on the second day of deliberations said jurors were “unable to come to a consensus” on the first of two counts against Avenatti and asked, “What are our next steps?”

Furman — after noting that deliberations had lasted only about four hours — instructed the jury to keep trying. About three hours later, a second note asked for a transcript of Daniels’ entire testimony and a clarification on the legal definition of “good faith.”

Count one is a wire fraud charge. The jury has been instructed to consider a second count, aggravated identity theft, only if it convicts on the first.

Avenatti, who is acting as his own attorney, told reporters the first note was hopeful sign for his defense.

“The case isn’t as clear cut as the government wants everybody to believe,” he said.

During the two-week trial, prosecutors said the California lawyer spun a web of lies to cheat Daniels of nearly $300,000 she was owed for her autobiography, spending it on his firm’s payroll and personal expenses. Avenatti argued in closing arguments that he was acting in good faith, believing he was owed the money and never thinking it was wrong to take it.

Avenatti helped secure the book deal for Daniels in spring 2018, shortly after he began representing her in lawsuits meant to free her from the rules of a 2016 payment of $130,000 she had received from Donald Trump’s personal lawyer to remain silent about an alleged tryst a decade earlier with Trump.