Officials at the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service named Michael Avenatti in a 36-count indictment on Thursday, charging the attorney best known for representing porn star Stormy Daniels in a case against President Donald Trump with a litany of financial crimes. Those include multiple counts each of wire fraud, tax fraud, bank fraud and bankruptcy fraud, U.S. Attorney Nicola T. Hanna said at a Thursday morning press conference in Los Angeles. “These four areas of criminal conduct alleged in the indictment are all linked to one another because money generated from one set of crimes appears in other sets,” Hanna said, “typically in the form of payments to lull victims and to prevent Mr. Avenatti’s financial house of cards from collapsing.”Agent Ryan Korner with IRS Criminal Investigation in Los Angeles went a step further, characterizing the 48-year-old lawyer as caught up in a “tangled financial web of lies.”Avenatti announced ahead of the hearing he intends to plead not guilty, adding on Twitter, “I look forward to the entire truth being known as opposed to a one-sided version meant to sideline me.”

Source: Huffington Post April 11, 2019 14:52 UTC