AVENATTI SENTENCED TO 14 YEARS IN PRISON

Incarcerated lawyer Michael Avenatti was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Monday in Southern California and ordered to pay more than $10 million in restitution after admitting he cheated four of his clients out of millions of dollars.

The sentence should run consecutively to the five years in prison he is currently serving for separate convictions in New York, U.S. District Judge James V. Selna said during a hearing in Santa Ana.

It is the last of three major federal criminal cases to wrap up against the 51-year-old Californian, who rose to fame as he represented adult film star Stormy Daniels during her legal battles with Donald Trump and became one of the former president’s leading adversaries.

Avenatti pleaded guilty this year to four counts of wire fraud and a tax-related charge despite not reaching a plea deal with federal prosecutors, saying he wanted to be accountable and spare his family further embarrassment. He was accused of negotiating and collecting settlement payments on behalf of his clients and funneling the money to accounts he controlled, and spending it on his own lavish lifestyle, including a private jet.

Avenatti apologized to the clients he bilked, including two who told the court about how losing the money and their trust in someone they thought had their back upended their lives.

“I am deeply remorseful and contrite,” he said. “There is no doubt that all of them deserve much better, and I hope that someday they will accept my apologies and find it in their heart to forgive me.”

Avenatti is serving prison time for stealing book proceeds from Daniels — who sued to break a confidentiality agreement with Trump to stay mum about an affair she said they had — and for trying to extort Nike if the shoemaker didn’t pay him up to $25 million.

In California, authorities said Avenatti carried out what amounted to a “sophisticated Ponzi scheme” by collecting settlement payments on behalf of vulnerable clients and using the money to fund his exorbitant lifestyle.

Avenatti was ordered to pay more than $7 million in restitution to his clients and more than $3 million to the Internal Revenue Service.